Emotional Intelligence in Pre-Adolescent Immigrants of Second Generation

Dottorato di Ricerca in Scienze Psicologiche e Sociali Dipartimento di Scienze Psicologiche, Pedagogiche e della Formazione Settore Scientifico Disciplinare (M-PSI/01).

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN PRE-ADOLESCENT IMMIGRANTS OF SECOND GENERATION

IL DOTTORE IL COORDINATORE Dott. JHONY JALIER MEJIA DIAZ Prof.ssa. ALIDA LO COCO

IL TUTOR Prof.ssa. ANTONELLA D’AMICO

CICLO XXV 2015

INTRODUCTION VI

SECTION 1 1

THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1

CHAPTER 1 2

1. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: THEORETICAL MODELS, MEASUREMENT TOOLS AND

IMPROVEMENT TECHNIQUES 2

1.1. From General intelligence to Emotional intelligence 2

1.2.The popularity of Emotional intelligence 7

1.3. The Mayer and Salovey four-branch model of emotional intelligence or ability model. 12

1.3.1. Assessment Tool Based on The Mayer and Salovey Model of EI 16

1.3.1.1. The TMMS: Trait-Meta Mood Scale 17

1.3.1.2. MEIS: Multi-branch Emotional Intelligence Scale 18

1.3.1.3. MSCEIT: Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test 19

1.3.1.4. IE ACCME Test: Intelligenza Emotiva: Abilità, Credenze e Concetto di sé Meta-Emotivo. 21

1.4.Experimental investigations of EI 24

1.5. THE IMPROVEMENT TECHNIQUES 28

1.5.1. The Social and Emotional Learning 28

1.5.2. SEL concept and its development 30

1.5.3. Researches carried out and program effects 31

1.5.3.1. Experiences realized in Europe 31

1.5.3.2. Experiences realized in USA 42

CHAPTER 2 47

WELL-BEING 47

2.1. Well-being concept 47

2.1.2. Psychological well-being in science 49

2.1.3. Subjective well-being 49

2.1.4. Social well-being 51

2.1.5. Psychological well-being 53

2.2. Measuring well-being 56

2.4. Connection between psychological EI and health: short review of literature 62

2.4.1. Researches which connect PEB and EI-Ability 63

2.4.2. Researches which connect WB and EI 65

CHAPTER 3 71

ANALYSIS AND DESCRIPTION OF MIGRATORY EVENT 71

3.1. Description of migratory event 71

3.1.2. Definition of second-generation immigrants 71

3.1.3. The Integration of Immigrants 73

3.1.4. Discrimination and Psychological Well-Being 77

3.1.5. RESEARCHES ABOUT IE INVOLVING IMMIGRANTS 78

SECTION 2 80

THE STUDIES 80

CHAPTER 4 81

4.1. INTRODUCTION AND GOALS 81

STUDY 1: DOES EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE PLAY A ROLE IN PSYCHOSOCIAL ADJUSTMENT

OF SECOND-GENERATION ADOLESCENT IMMIGRANTS? 82

4.1.1.METHOD: 82

4.1.1.2. Participants: 82

4.1.1.3. Materials and procedures 83

4.1.2. Results: 87

4.1.2.3. EI differences in immigrant and autochthonous groups 91

4.1.2.4. Difference between Immigrants and Autochthonous Groups in The Sociogram 94

4.1.3. Discussion and Conclusions: 100

4.2. Study 2 enhancing emotional intelligence in immigrant adolescents to promote their inclusion 104

4.2.1.introduction and goals 104

4.2.1.2. Method 104

4.2.1.3. Participants 104

4.2.1.4. Investigation design 105

4.2.1.5. Material an procedures 105

4.2.1.5.1Evaluated intelligence 105

4.2.1.5.2. Psychological Well-Being Scale 105

4.2.1.5.3. Moreno’s sociogram: 106

4.2.1.5.4. Training 107

4.2.2 Data analysis 110

4.2.2.1. Results: 110

4.2.2.2. IE differences between experimental and control group 110

4.2.3. Discussions and Conclusions 118

4.2.3.1. Limitations 119

General conclusions 120

References 122

Annex 137

III

Table Index

TABLE 1: Perception, appraisal, and expression of emotion 14 TABLE 2: Some of the most representative researches in educational field 26 TABLE 3: Summary Simple and Partial Correlations of reading comprehension test and the IE-ACCME test (D' Amico, 2013) And The Psychological Well - Being Scales By Ryff (Pwbs: in Zani, B ., & Cigonani, E., 1999) 88 TABLE 4: Summary Simple and Partial Correlations of reading comprehension test and the IE-ACCME test (D' AMICO, 2013) and Sociogram 90 TABLE 5: EI levels (TEST IE-ACCME, D’AMICO, 2013) In Immigrants and Autochthonus 92 TABLE 6: Well-Being Levels (PWBS; Ryff Zani, B., & Cigonani, E., 1999 ) in Immigrants and Autochthonous 93 TABLE 7: Sociogram's Score in Immigrants and Autochthonous 94 TABLE 8: Percentage of Students Chosen for Each Variable in The Sociogram’s Affective Dimension 95 TABLE 9: Differences Between Groups of Autochthonous and Immigrants According to its Choices at Sociogram, Regard to The Scores on The IE-ACCME Test 98 TABLE 10: Differences Between Groups of Autochthonous and Immigrants According to Election Received On Sociogram, Relating to scores in the IE-ACCME Test 99 TABLE 11: Activities of IE Laboratory 107 TABLE 12: EI Levels (EI-ACCME Test, D'Amico, 2013) Experimental And Control Group 111 TABLE 13: IE Levels Sub-Scales Facilitation and Emotional Comprehension (IE-ACCME Test, D'Amico, 2013) Experimental And Control Group 114 TABLE 14: Well-Being Levels (Pwbs: in Zani, B. & Cigonani, E., 1999) In Experimental And Control Group 115 TABLE 15: Sociogram scores in experimental group with immigrants and autochthonous 116

Acknowledgements

First of all, I want to thank my supervisor Antonella D'Amico (Università degli Studi di Palermo) whose comments, reviews and suggestions have been precious during the drafting of this thesis.

I am really grateful to the Department of Psychology at “Universidad de Malaga” who gave me the possibility to work in an international environment. I’m also grateful to the professor who allowed this opportunity: Pablo Fernandez Berrocal.

I also thank to principals and teachers of the two schools in the city of Palermo, “Istituto “Regina Margherita and “Isituto .Comprensivo Turrisi Colonna D’Acquisto” for kindly letting me do my research in their schools.

For my respondents, thank you very much for letting me explore your experiences during my survey.

Then, I have to thank my family: my parents and my sister, who ,despite the distance, always supported and encouraged me, and my wife who taught me that perseverance is the best way to achieve my goals.

Many thanks also to my colleagues and friends Marco Cirincione and Janio Caldas (Università degli Studi di Palermo), who helped, supported, criticized and stimulated my work.

Introduction

This research comes out from the need to understand how the Emotional Intelligence (EI) plays an important role about the enhancing and implementation of psycho-social factors which influence the integration process. In fact, it has been noticed that integrations events which involve foreign people who move into a new country are frequently complex and show cases of daze, upsetting, anxiety, depression and lack of relationships. Especially for second-generation immigrants, these issues include also low school performance, lack of relationships with their peers, behavioral problems and social maladjustment which could emphasize their difficulties about integration.

In order to solve these problems, the researches focused their attention on the potentialities of EI because, through some studies carried out about psychological adaptation, they noted that people with high level of EI get good adaptive behavior, develop positive relationships, have low level of anxiety, depression and physical problems, get better school results. Moreover, they have less aggressive behaviors and use less tobacco and alcohol.

The results obtained through years of researches in this field are the product of models which used those instruments to validate the theory that confirm the EI requirements.

So far, we described the guidelines of this research often mentioning the Emotional

Intelligence and its use. But what is it? Mayer and Salovey (1990) claimed that EI is “A form of intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions (Salovey

& Mayer, 1990)”. It is the result of authors’ researches about some abilities like perception of

VI emotions, identifying faces, emotion as facilitator of thought, relationships between tasks and emotions.

The concept of EI and the methods to analyze it found a favorable environment within educational centers. So the goal of schools and educational institutes is not only to give education simply but also to provide emotional and social competence. Teachers, administrators and school staff cooperate to reach such goal and it is possible through the use of ´Social and Emotional

Learning´ (SEL) programs. There are different definitions of SEL but they have common traits which can be resumed as the socio-emotional ability to develop positive behaviors and relationships within the school environment. The importance of SEL programs concerns their results which showed a better school performance and relationships between students and peers and students and teachers. Those aspects will be express in a detailed way on chapter 1.

The EI is a concept which is expressed not only as an independent aspect but it has a strict connection to different elements such as well-being. As for SEL, there is no agreement about a definition of well-being but surely it consists of material and spiritual features, concerns an health, economic or mind’s flourishing state and includes three basic elements: subjective, social and psychological well-being. The relationship with EI is carried out through personal and interpersonal skills which are connected to life satisfaction, subjective well-being and social and personal relationships. EI and well-being share the same sign: higher level of EI correspond to higher level of well-being. It is measured through a great variety of instruments which will be described along with the other features of well-being on chapter 2.

Concerning well-being, there are different negative aspects which could influence on adaptation, adjustment and behavior. Some of these, like ethnic discrimination, are directly linked to migratory event which lead people to get disruptive behavior, depressive symptoms, anxiety

VII and difficulty to establish interpersonal relationships. A deeper difference arises between second- generation immigrants and their parents: young immigrants struggle between the social pressure of their country and the native heritage of their parents. One more difficulty is represented by the expectations of parents, who got a successful life in terms of income and social role, and the comparison with their peers. The frustration could lead to negative behavior or social tension: this situation could be faced through the positive help of educational structures, especially with the support of teachers which is fundamental to enforce the integration process.

Such migratory events were studied in connection with the levels of EI. In this way, the investigators tried to verify if acculturation strategies are related to different levels of EI. The results indicated that higher levels of EI are more receptive towards multiculturalism and external groups. Other researches showed the connection between EI and acculturation styles as well as between psychological adjustment and well-being, indicating that high levels of EI are positively related to well-being and happiness but negatively to depression and it also affects acculturation experiences.

This study has an underlying reason which longs for investigating if: 1) individuals with poor adaptation could be characterized by low levels of emotional intelligence 2) emotional intelligence might be one of the key factors in social adjustment of immigrant preadolescents 3) improved emotional intelligence may have a positive impact on social adjustment of immigrant preadolescents. In particular, the study no.1 investigates if the individual levels of emotional intelligence are related to other indicators of psychosocial adaptation, such as individual well- being, adaptation and success among peers. The study no.2 investigates whether training in emotional intelligence (IE) in pre-adolescent second generation immigrants, helps to improve individual well-being and social acceptance, promoting social inclusion.

VIII

SECTION 1

THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Chapter 1

1. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: THEORETICAL MODELS, MEASUREMENT TOOLS AND IMPROVEMENT TECHNIQUES

1.1. From General intelligence to Emotional intelligence

Intelligence has been one of the most frequently topics faced by psychologists. The study of intelligence and measuring is an area of research that arises at the same time as experimental psychology.

In England Francis Galton (1822-1911) conceived intelligence as a general ability that is part of all kinds of cognitive activity, to a higher or lower degree, which differs from one person to another and so determines the overall level of intelligence for each subject.

Galton is considered the founder of differential psychology, since he has explored the intelligence essentially on the sensory dimension: weight, sight, height, hearing, breathing capacity, response time "reaction", etc..). These sensorial dimensions were used to evaluate the intelligence of a subject. Addition to this he is recognized as a pioneer in the application of rating scales and questionnaires, as well as in developing the statistical method for the analysis of individual differences.

In his research, Galton gets a rating of seven intervals for humans according to their abilities:

(A, just above average, to G, genius), as well as other intelligence researchers, Galton shares the assertion that intellect can be measured, giving subjects some tests which he can explore the

2 capabilities and knowledge with. The performance obtained in the tests defines the intellectual level of the individual.

In early 1900, in France, Alfred Binet defined intelligence as the ability to make and maintain a certain direction and the adaptation to new situations and the ability to critique own actions.

In his works, he stands out as a pioneer in the measurement of intelligence; Binet in this sense does not set an amount, as then, Wechsler David and Lewis Terman (1916) will do introducing the concept of intelligence quotient (IQ). From this perspective the goal of Binet

(1905) was to provide a quality number, from which he obtained a result that could represent the evolutionary process and the intellectual level attained by a child. The Binet Intelligence Scale measures the following domains in subjects 3-12 years of age: 1) pure and simple intelligence, 2) extracurricular acquisitions, 3) purchases related to language and vocabulary.

Robert J. Sternberg (1985), who is considered a leading figure in the investigation of human intelligence, defines intelligence as follows "mental activity directed for the purpose of adaptation, selection or creation of real-world environments relevant to one's own life." The intelligence would be properly when a subject faces changes in their environment along his life cycle. This theory is comprehensive since intelligence is not seen as singular skill, however it is considered as an articulated unit, composed and constituted by different parts, since this theory takes social and contextual factors besides human abilities into consideration; he defined a triarchic theory of intelligence.

1. ) Analytic intelligence (abstract) that refers to the analysis, evaluation and

comparison of information.

2. ) Practical Intelligence: that refers to the ability to execute materially things learnt

and prosecuted.

3. ) Creative intelligence: that refers to the possibility of finding original solutions,

producing innovations, making discoveries and having an insight

The meeting point between analytical, practical and creative ability is the successful intelligence that contributes to perform efficiently in a particular socio-cultural context and in the same order it modifies and selects opportunely the environment in terms of its own goals. Later

Stemberg includes three sub categories: 1) a component that considers the internal environment of the individual, 2) a context that refers to the external environment of the individual and integrates social intelligence, 3) an experiential component that includes the internal and external environment of the individual.

Stemberg underlines the role of concrete situations, demonstrating the commitment which does not relegate the intelligence only to the common or traditional areas of abstract logic, reaffirming the importance and relevance of an approach that gives importance to the context.

The Guilford (1971) intelligence model greatly expands the nature of intelligence by adding factors such as social judgment, which is the assessment of other individuals’ behavior and the creativity seen as divergent thinking. The intellect structure of Guilford is extremely varied, since it includes a large number of mental abilities. In his model, he considers the existence of 120 basis factors or primary abilities, later expanded to 150 factors.

In this way Guilford considers the intellect structure as a product of three basic processes’ interaction: 1.) Operation: assessment, convergent thinking, divergent thinking, memory and understanding; 2.) Content: behavioral, semantic, symbolic and figurative; 3.) Product: unity, type, relationships, systems, transformations and implications. Their combination would constitute the skills.

The intelligence model of L.L. Thurstone (1938) provides the analysis of seven factors to determine basic characteristics that seemed to make up intelligence, that is: 1) verbal comprehension (definition and understanding of words), 2) verbal fluency (being able to think words quickly) 3) numeric (being able to do and solve arithmetic problems) 4) space (being able to understand spatial relationships) 5) mechanical memory (being able to memorize and remember) 6) perception (being able to grasp quickly the similarities, differences and details of objects or encouragement); 7) reasoning (being able to understand the principles and concepts to solve problems).

The model of Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences is the first theory to question the existence of a single type of intelligence. Gardner begins to formulate the first hypothesis on the theory of multiple intelligences in his book The shuttered mind (1993), to be subsequently defined in one of the most important books of Gardner’s Frame of mind (1993). Here he asserts the existence of seven different kinds of intelligence that an individual can use, depending on the specific situation. Now a brief description of these intelligences as it follows:

1) Linguistic intelligence: it allows individuals to communicate with others and it

contributes to linguistic information processing.

2) Intelligence Spatial: it allows individuals to perceive visual or spatial information that

allows the transformation and construction of images without the need of a relevant

encouragement.

3) Logical mathematical intelligence: it involves the use of abstract reasoning in relation

to the properties of numerical basis

4) Musical intelligence: it allows individuals to create, comprehend and understand

musical compositions in relation the beat

5) Bodily or kinesthetic intelligence: it allows the use of the body with an expressive

purpose, controlling own movements, and recognizing the body position in space. It also

allows the manipulation of objects with a certain degree of mastery.

6) Intrapersonal intelligence: it allows the understanding of own emotions and those of

others and it contributes to the regulation of own feelings.

7) Interpersonal intelligence: it allows to distinguish and classify different aspects of

physical reality that surrounds the individual, that is: living beings, plants or animals.

Considering the intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence realized by Gardner, it has been the basis for the development of emotional intelligence´s concept; since the theory of multiple intelligences and Sternberg’s theory are both based on the definition given by Thordinke on social intelligence that described as the ability to understand and relate to men and women and act appropriately to human relationships. In particular, concerning the intrapersonal intelligence as recognizing and feeling handling, it is very close to EI idea which will be developed later.

1.2.The popularity of Emotional intelligence

Since the emergence in 1995 of the bestseller Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, this concept has been one of the most researched arguments and disseminated in recent years.

Numerous are the reasons that could motivate such diffusion, but there are two that could be considered more relevant, firstly the wide popularization of the concept in both scientific and non-scientific media on emotional processes.

Such popularization, genered undoubtedly a confusion on what was and what was not IE, all this due to the use and mixture, made by Goleman in his book, of some pre-existing psychological concepts like motivation, self-esteem, self-concept, social skills.

Since the expansion and use of the concept of IE, theorists have developed a large number of different models; the matter is that is necessary to clarify that these models are based on three perspectives: the skills or competencies, behaviors and intelligence (Freudenthaler & Neubauer

2005). On the other hand, different authors (Bar-On, 1997; Cooper and Sawaf, (1997); Shapiro

(1997), Goleman (1998) and Gottman (1997) cited by Trujillo and Rivas (2005) have published and developed other different approaches to the concept of IE, proposing its own components and tools for the assessment of the concept. In the same way, each has differences in the skills an emotionally intelligent person should own.

Mayer, Salovey and Caruso (2000), to seek clarification from the immensity of approaches of IE, have suggested an effective distinction between Mixed models and models of mental ability; where they remember the last theoretical contribution made by Mayer and Salovey

(1997), within which is considered to be constituent elements of emotional Variables exclusively cognitive intelligence and mental abilities, thus excluding other related individual differences

7 components, because they do support standard criteria for intelligence (Mayer, Salovey and

Caruso, 1999).

The mixed models make reference, models - proposed by Goleman (1995) and Bar-On

(1997) who consider IE as a "mixture of behavioral tendencies and motivational and affective variables considered relatively stable and not necessarily related to intelligence" (De Caro and

D'Amico, 2008).

Goleman’s theory defines EI as the ability to recognize and manage our own feelings, motivate us and monitor our relations. It also claims that EI is much more decisive than IQ factor, since emotional attitudes are meta-abilities that determine how to manage properly in order to use our capabilities including those of the intellect. Model (EC) emotional competencies (Goleman,

1998) consists of a skill series that facilitate people’s management of emotions, towards themselves and towards others. Initially this model consisted of five stages which were subsequently changed to four groups (Goleman 1998, 2001) with twenty skills for each one: 1) self-awareness, knowledge of our preferences, feelings, states and domestic resources; 2) self- regulation, management of our feelings, impulses, states and internal obligations; 3) social conscience, feelings recognition, concerns and needs of others 4) relationships management, the ability to handle well the relationships and build networks of support (Goleman 2001).

Goleman's work has been criticized repeatedly by the scientific community as lacking a of solid foundation. In his bestseller Emotional Intelligence (1995), the author describes emotional intelligence almost as a matter of character, able to predict success in life, everyone is able to access. Also, made largely coincide emotional intelligence with social skills, modifying and extending the same meaning and model (EC).

Meanwhile, Bar - On offered another definition of emotional intelligence taking as a starting point to Salovey and Mayer. It describes the IE as a set of knowledge and skills in the emotional and social impact on our ability to address effectively the demands of our environment. These skills are based on the ability of the individual to be aware, understand, control and express their emotions in an effective way (Caruso et al. 1999) Mayer and Salovey 1995; (Bar - On 1997).

Bar-On, in order to support its statement, has carried out some researches which find out the connection between EI and physical/psychological health, social interaction, school and job performance, subjective well-being and self-fulfillment. This model, considered in this structure, has been applied in different fields such as work, educational, medical clinical and investigation ones in prevention programs (Mancini & Trombini 2011). On the other hand, the specialists who challenged the Bar-On model refers in a moderate way to the questioner who makes the label of psychological dimension which describes that model with the term Emotional Intelligence or better like a whole of personal features linked to emotions (D’Amico 2008).

The model developed by Bar-On introduces the term (EQ) emotional quotient, related to EI, stressing that the cognitive and emotional sphere contribute equally to the potential of a person. It means that this confluence explains how an individual relates with people surrounding around it and its environment.

As Mayer (1999) claimed: The Dr. Salovey, Caruso and me, we refer to these definitions as

"mixed model" because different aspects of personality are mixed. [...] They contain variables

that are beyond what is meant by the term "emotion" or "intelligence" or so the people could

reasonably infer the "Emotional Intelligence"

As mentioned in subdivision mixed models and ability-EI, appropriate apply different valuation methods. These are divided into self reports: or instruments of a self-assessment subjective and are applied in the case of mixed models, and based on emotional performance measurement tools: these tools objective's type have used in the case of the ability IE. The latter will be discussed in the section related to the model of Mayer and Salovey

In the self-description questionnaire, people are invited to describe themselves through the answers given to different information, as in EQ-i developed for Bar-On (1997) and ECI-360:

(Boyatzis, Goleman, & Hay-McBer, 1999). These methods presume that people express their ability about self-analysis and self-knowledge. There are reasons, however, to suppose that people have a distorted idea about themselves. On the other hand, in some case, people face questions which potentially lead to answers influenced by social disability, therefore some self- descriptive scales can reflect the individual self-concept and/or its disability perception but not its

”real” perception. This kind of indicators is called “perceived or self-informed index of emotional intelligence” which reveals believes and expectations of people about perceiving, distinguishing and regulating their emotions (Extremera & Berrocal, 2004).

Among the best known test self-report, we can list: the Emotional Inventory (EQ-i) Bar-On

(1997), the Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI360).

The EQ-i test, on the part of it, shoots for identifying the level where emotional and social factors occur in individuals’ behavior and chooses the measuring strategy of the self-report (Bar-

On 2000) aimed to 17 years old subjects, consisting of 133 items and divided into five general factors which are divided again into 15 sub-scales. 1) Intrapersonal intelligence that evaluates the ability of emotional self-consciousness2) Interpersonal intelligence that includes the sub-scales of empathy, interpersonal relations and social responsibility 3) Adaptation that includes the ability

10 of problem solving, reality control and flexibility 4) Stress handling consisting of tolerance sub- scale and impulse control 5) General mood completed by optimism and happiness sub-scale.

Moreover, the list includes 4 validity indicators which measure the level of subjects’ unexpected event response or distortion of their answers. The purpose is to decrease the social desirability effect and increasing the reliability of research results (Extremera, Fernandez, 2004, D’Amico,

2008). Empirical studies have also shown a high reliability and validity level with a Cronbach’s alpha of 93 as noticed by Dawda and Hart, 2000; Petrides and Furnham, 2001 in (De Caro and

D'Amico, 2008).

The EQ-i test has been adapted and applied in different countries and cultures. In connection with that, studies carried out by Bar-On stand out for being very detailed as well as for instrument applicability towards samples with multiple features (chronological, cultural, geographical). For this reason, it’s given to EQ-I the faculty to predict EI in the cultures and its measuring in a more understanding way (Matthews et al. 2002). However, the limitation of self-report as measuring strategy has been discussed, as well as the mixed results as for model’s items. Moreover, the critics of the model have stated that this list measures personality features instead of EI (Dawda

& Hart 2000).

ECI-360: Emotional Competency Inventory (Boyatzis, Goleman, & Hay-McBer, 1999) is a self-assessment tool consists of 110 items that measure 20 competencies, organized into four constructs outlined by Goleman's model (1998): self-awareness, social awareness, control and social skills if (Boyatzis, Goleman, & Rhee, 2000; Goleman, 1995; Hall, 2002). To each examined subject is asked to describe himself or the other person on a scale of 1 to 7. These compounds are subsequently ratings for each of the skills. The subject is assigned two ratings for

11 each competency: an evaluation of whether and, overall, the other (consisting of the average of all ratings of the other). In addition to the self-evaluation report, the individual completing the test can be evaluated by other people who know about each aspect of IE.

Hall (2002) verified that the E.I. measured by the ECI-360 is positively correlated, significantly, with the success both in life both at work and with the salary. Furthermore, the skills valued by the ECI-360 would correspond to some personality dimensions of the model of the Big Five, as the Extraversion, Emotional Stability, and Conscientiousness the Amiability measured by the NEO Personality Inventory (Matthews, Zeidner, & Roberts, 2002; Van Rooy &

Viswesvaran, 2004). Several authors (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2000b; Hedlund & Sternberzg,

2000) found several limitations both in the design of EI Goleman and Boyatzis (for example, due to the construct too many and too varied skills and traits personality), and, consequently, in the instrument of measurement adopted (ECI-360) that would not be considered a valid test from the scientific point of view.

After having described the most popular models and assessment tool on IE, below the model

Mayer and Salovey (1990) which has a greater empirical support over previous described.

1.3. The Mayer and Salovey four-branch model of emotional intelligence or ability model.

The theoretical model of Emotional Intelligence (EI), which will be used in this thesis, refers to the most recent model proposed by Salovey and Mayer.

Salovey and Mayer defined EI as "the ability to identify and translate correctly personal and other signs and emotional events, developing them and producing process of emotional direction,

12 thought and behavior in an effective and suitable way for personal goals and environment". There by implying that an individual has the ability to access its emotions, making tuning and integration of your experiences.

The theoretical model essentially focuses on the individual's ability in processing emotional information, and defines emotional intelligence as a pure form of mental ability and thus as a pure intelligence, in the traditional sense, as a set of cognitive skills involved in emotional functioning.

The model of four-branches emotional intelligence or ability model (Mayer and Salovey,

1997) is divided into four areas (comprises 16 skill) arranged mainly in a hierarchical manner 1) perceiving, evaluating and expressing emotions with accuracy, 2) accessing or generating feelings that facilitate thought; 3) understanding emotions and emotional knowledge; 4) regulating emotions, promoting emotional and intellectual growth"(Mayer & Salovey, 1997).

Table 1: Categories of abilities associated to Emotional Intelligence.

1) PERCEPTION, APPRAISAL, AND EXPRESSION OF EMOTION Category 1 Category 2 Category 3 Category 4 Ability to identify Ability to identify Ability to express Ability to emotion in one's emotions in other people and lifestyles discriminate physical states, Persons, designs, accurately and to between accurate feelings, and artwork, etc., express needs and inaccurate, or thoughts through language, related to those honest versus sound, appearance, feelings. dishonest and behavior. expressions of feeling

(2) EMOTIONAL FACILITATION OF THINKING Emotions prioritize Emotions are Emotional mood Emotional states thinking by sufficiently vivid and change the swings differentially directing attention available that they individual's encourage specific to important can be generated as perspective from problem approaches Information. AIDS to judgment optimistic to such as when and memory pessimistic happiness facilitates concerning feelings. encouraging inductive reasoning consideration of and creativity. multiple points of view. (3) UNDERSTANDING AND ANALYZING EMOTIONS; EMPLOYING EMOTIONAL KNOWLEDGE Ability to label Ability to interpret Ability to Ability to recognize emotions and the meanings that understand complex likely transitions recognize relations convey emotions feelings: among emotions, among the words regarding simultaneous such as the and the emotions relationships, such feelings of love and transition from themselves, such as that sadness hate, or blends such anger to as the relation often motion to loss. as awe as to satisfaction, or from between liking and combination of fear anger to shame loving and surprise

(4) REFLECTIVE REGULATION OF EMOTIONS TO PROMOTE EMOTIONAL AND INTELLECTUAL GROWTH Ability to stay open Ability to reflectively Ability to reflectively Ability to manage to feelings, both engage or detach monitor emotions in emotion in oneself those that are from and emotion relation to oneself and others by pleasant and those Depending upon its and others, such as moderating that are judged Recognizing how negative emotions unpleasant Informativeness or clear, typical, and enhancing Utility influential, or pleasant ones, Reasonable they are. without repressing or exaggerating information they may convey

1. Perception, appraisal and expression of emotions: in the first box referred the ability to

perceive emotions in themselves and in others. This skill is considered important due to a

correct assessment of emotions makes the individual can distinguish between expressions

real or feigned emotional relation to the situation experienced. It is, then, the precision with

which an individual can identify emotions in an emotional context specific (Mayer &

Salovey, 1997). Whoever have this well developed skill you can identify the emotional

expressions in others, so as to modify and regulate their own behavior. In addition, the

individual may respond faster relative to their own emotional state and to adequately

express to others (Mayer & Salovey, 1997).

2. Using emotions to facilitate thinking: in this second box referred the ability to use

emotions to enhance and direct the thinking and directing creativity and problem solving.

In other words, it tries to integrate emotions and perceptual processes cognitive. By this is

meant that the emotions influence cognitive processes acting on problem solving and

decision making. This capacity can be understand if you see how this evolves along the

span of life; that is, a child mourns the need for food or requests protection; emotions

continue achieving its development over time address attention to information more

relevance. In the same way that one can detect another contribution of emotions thought;

Mayer & Salovey as (1997), ability to generate, feel, manipulate and examine emotions, to

understand better, which can help a person in decisions between different possibilities in

the arch of the individual's life.

3. Understand and analyze the emotions. Use emotional knowledge: the third box refers to

the ability to understand the combination of different emotions and transition emotional, EI,

how an emotion can be transformed into another, and to analyze the emotions in each of its

components. Are is the ability of an individual to distinguish between various emotions,

understanding the relationships between them, identification the consequences of emotions,

to understand the complex emotions, conflicting emotional states and concatenation

emotions (Mayer & Salovey, 1997).

4. Reflexive regulation of emotions in the promote emotional and intellectual growth: four in

box referred to ability to manage emotions and others. It is a skill very important, as

influence the welfare the individual and their ability to behave adequately and effectively in

situations stressors of everyday life, moderating negative emotions and valuing the

positive, in order to achieve a good and proper adaptation. At this level corresponds

capacity to tolerate and group emotions when these are experienced regardless the nature of

emotion (nice or unpleasant).

1.3.1. Assessment Tool Based on The Mayer and Salovey Model of EI

Models of emotional intelligence as a construct are assumed multiple skills that need to find ways and methods to assess. Authors Mayer and Salovey have set the criteria based on which EI can be properly measured and assessed.

Reference will be made below in chronological order of the assessment tool based on Mayer and Salovey model.

1.3.1.1. The TMMS: Trait-Meta Mood Scale

Trait Meta-Mood Scale (Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey, & Palfai, 1995) Test self-report for adults which includes three subscales, derived from the original theory of Salovey and Mayer

(1990): Attention to emotions (attention) emotional clarity (clarity) emotional Repair (repair).

The construct is defined in a much narrower than the MEIS, and relates more to the management of personal emotions. The scale is related to Repair rumination. Perhaps the use of the most creative and interesting TMMS was done by Gohm (2003), who measured a sample of subjects on three dimensions: Clarity (Clarity from TMMS more 'Labeling' by MAS), Attention

(Attention from TMMS more 'Monitoring 'from the MAS) and intensity (AIM more EIS). Thanks to these three dimensions, there are four profiles emotional: Warm (high clarity, high attention, and high intensity); Cold (low clarity, low attention, and low intensity); Brain (high clarity, media attention, low intensity); Overwhelmed (Overwhelmed) - (low clarity, media attention, and high intensity). The different profiles are related to differences in the regulation of the motions, evaluated in a laboratory task. In particular style Overwhelmed tends to hyper regulate emotions and prevent the emotional changes. These differences in the regulation, however, are not related to the score in the scale of TMMS Repair throwing some doubt on the scale of the construct of the same subscale.

Mayer and colleagues believed that the measure of emotional intelligence through self- evaluation were not reliable, because their theoretical assumption was based on the assumption that it was a cognitive ability as classical intelligence, and then devised a tool based performance of individuals, using tasks that test the skills of EI.

the review about the assessment tool, in competence test, the person is lead to carry out different tasks in which there is the solution of problems that presumes the existence of a ”right” answer which reveals an higher EI. A clear example is the Multifactorial Emotional Intelligence

Scale (MEIS) and its improved version called MSCEIT (Mayer, Salovey and Caruso, 2002;

Mayer, et al., 1999). The most found problem with this kind of test is the selection of more relevant tasks and the determination of the right or the most adjusted answer to EI concept.

1.3.1.2. MEIS: Multi-branch Emotional Intelligence Scale

Mayer and Salovey started to try the validity of their emotional intelligence 4 branches’ model with Multi-branch Emotional Intelligence Scale (MEIS). Consisting of 12 measuring sub- scales of emotional intelligence, MEIS evaluation makes a distinction of the classic intelligence with 3 different sub-factors: emotional perception, emotional comprehension and emotional handling. MEIS has found limited evidence for the emotional intelligence’s branch related to complete emotions. Besides that, MEIS has found discriminating evalution’s evidence in emotional intelligence pointing at independence from general intelligence and self-reported empathy, showing its ability to measure individual quality, not found in other tests. One of the most important limitations of MEIS test was its own extension (402 items) as it does not give satisfying evidence to complete the four branches of Mayer, Salovey and Caruso’s model. For that and other reasons, investigators group established to develop a new instrument to measure emotional intelligence.

1.3.1.3. MSCEIT: Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test

The most common instrument to measure emotional intelligence has been developed by

Mayer, Salovey and Caruso and is called “Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence”

(MSCEIT). This test was standardized through a sample of 5000 men and women from the

United States, Europe, Australia, Canada, Israel and other countries in business environments, educational, medical, psychiatric, rehabilitation and research. MSCEIT is planned for 17 years old people or more and it’s aimed to measure the four abilities described on Salovey and Mayer’s emotional intelligence model. Each ability (perception, mind attitude, comprehension and adjustment) is measured with specific tasks. Perception of emotion is measured by the qualification of extension and by the kind of expressed emotion in different kind of images. Mind attitude is measured asking to individual to establish a parallelism between emotion and physical sensation (i.e. light, colour, temperature) as well as between emotion and mind. Comprehension is measured asking to the subject to explain how emotions can get mixed each other (i.e. fury and rage). Adjustment (or handling) of emotions is measured as people choose a kind of self- adjustment technique rather than a different one.

With less than one third of items owned by MEIS, MSCEIT has 141 items. This test provide six kinds of score: a global score in emotional intelligence (expressed as emotional intelligence quotient o EIQ), two area notes (experiential intelligence, or EEIQ, and strategical emotional intelligence, or SEIQ) and four scores equivalent to the four branches. Each score is expressed as standard intelligence with an average score of 100 (average score achieved in a general

19 population) and a standard deviation of 15. Moreover, the manual provides qualitative qualifications which corresponds to every numerical question. For example, an individual who gets 69 or less at EIQ will be identified in “an outstanding development” while people who get

130 or more will be identified as “important power” (Mayer, Salovey & Caruso, 2002).

Some of studies carried out with MSCEIT have shown the presence of relevant relations between EI and personal and social adaptation (Mayer, Roberts & Barsade, 2008). Concerning to social behavior, a higher EI is related to a better perception of social competence and to a less use of negative interpersonal strategies (Brackett, Rivers, Shiffman, Lerner & Salovey, 2006; Lopes et al., 2004), a higher quality of social relationships (Extremera & Fernández-Berrocal, 2004), better family or couple relationships (Brackett et al., 2005). Moreover, people with a higher EI are considered more pleasant, empathic and sociable otherwise (Lopes, Salovey, Cote & Beers,

2005). Concerning to personal adaptation, EI has been associated in a relevant way to a very important variable criteria as self-esteem level (Brackett et al., 2006), well-being (Brackett &

Mayer, 2003) or a low depressive symptomatology (Extremera, Fernández-Berrocal, Ruiz-

Aranda & Cabello, 2006). These results give important evidence about the involvement of a proper handling that our emotions presume in the psychosocial development. For this reason, people emotionally intelligent own not only more ability about perceiving, understanding and adjusting their emotions, affecting their personal well-being in a positive way but they are also able to generalize these abilities to the emotions of others, supporting this way their social, family, private relationships. Despite the importance of these results, most of investigations with

MSCEIT have been carried out with samples made by adult people and there were few studies which analyzed the EI involvement in adolescence using measures of execution. Knowing the

20 influence of emotional abilities in earlier stages of development could be a goal with a great importance for different reasons: first, because it allows to analyze the condition of these abilities which evolve along life cycle; second, because it would help to explain the differences about the adaptation level of adolescents; third, because supporting the EI involvement in psychological and social adaption of children and adolescents, the practice of these abilities would presume an encouraging path for the prevention and the treatment of emotional and social problems.

1.3.1.4. IE ACCME Test: Intelligenza Emotiva: Abilità, Credenze e Concetto di sé Meta- Emotivo.

IE-ACCME test (Intelligenza Emotiva: Abilità, Credenze e Concetto di sé Meta-

Emotivo, D’Amico; 2013). This test allows to measure and evaluate the four EI branches described on Mayer and Salovey’s model (1997): perception, using, comprehension and handling of emotions through different methods of measuring.

The standardization sample consisted of 1123 subjects aged between 10 and 19 years, from five research locations located in different geographical areas of Italy: Milan, Padua, Urbino,

Florence, and Palermo.

The test consists of a booklet of tests (different gender) and a spreadsheet scoring readable, in which are contained all the answers to the test. Web site Giunti O.S. There is a scoring system of automatic responses, as well as the possibility of administration online. The automatic scoring also returns a graphic report for each subject, a function of performance list in which he is placed in the different sections of the test.

It is addressed to subjects aged from 10 to 18, structured on the profile of believes that a person owns about emotions (CE), Self Meta-Emotional concept (CM-E), emotional abilities

(AE) and self-evaluation of performance (AP). The structure of the test consists of 226 items in four sections which investigate the eight dimensions of identified emotions, in Mayer and

Salovey’s model (1997) as you can see in figure 2.

Figure 1: Model IE ACCME TEST

1.3.1.4.1.Questionnaire of Beliefs about Emotions (CE): includes 16 items that analyzes the believes which the subject has on emotions, especially it investigates the believes of the subject relative to emotions’ role in perception and daily sensation, in facilitation of thought process, as well as the possibility that emotions could be comprehended and adjusted both personal and interpersonal level; the method of answer to the questionnaire is a Likert scale with scores ranging from 0 to 4 (5 point Likert scale).

1.3.1.4.2. Questionnaire about Meta-Emotional Itself Concept (CME): It evaluates the abilities to recognize emotions through faces, pictures and sensations; the use of emotions in thought process; the lexical comprehension and the transformation of emotions; the handling of emotional states at a personal level and the relationship with others; the way of answer to the questionnaire is a Likert scale with scores ranging from 0 to 4 (5 point

Likert scale).

1.3.1.4.3. Emotional Ability Test (AE): This section explores the emotional abilities of the subjects, as estimated in ability-based test, investigating them as described in Mayer and Salovey’s model (1997): Perception of emotions (in face and picture); Facilitation of emotions in cognitive process (Use and sensation);

Comprehension of emotions (mixing and transformation); Situation handling of emotional problem solving (interpersonal and intrapersonal)

1.3.1.4.4. Ability Self-Evaluation (AP): This scale is given during emotional ability test. Subjects are invited to self-evaluate their own performance, consisting of carrying out their tasks provided by emotional ability test.

The different results show that the various measures captures different aspects, sometimes in opposition sometimes complementary, but useful for building an individual profile full of emotional intelligence and self-perceptions with regard to it.

The emotional skills, as well as agreements in the model of Salovey and Mayer (1997), are generally more powerful in terms of psychometric, and have better levels of predictive validity and competitor. Beliefs about the emotions they offer a picture of what is refined and articulated the way children perceive the emotions and I consider the influence in everyday life. The concept of self-Meta Emotional, in many cases, it proves not corresponding to the skills possessed by the

23 subject and, ultimately, the weakest in terms of psychometric (D'Amico, 2013). Limited to the size of the subtests skill GP and GI, you can measure not only the declarative knowledge about managing emotions, but also the degree of conformity of behavior that subjects relate to act and the discrepancy between the behaviors and acted as considered appropriate by the general sample and experienced.

The test-IE ACCME, like any other psychometric tests, provides information about a psychology circumscribed precisely what skills, beliefs and self-concept of meta-emotional preteens and teenagers. In an educational context, the information obtained can have a value of screening and establish itself as a fundamental basis for an intervention of emotional literacy and emotional education. While in clinical context information detected taken jointly with those from the administration of other psycho diagnostic instruments or observation of psychological symptoms and / or recurring patterns of behavior may be constituted as an integral component for the start of a path or psychoeducational and psychotherapeutic.

1.4.Experimental investigations of EI

The empirical investigations about EI have been very rich and almost in every their feature but especially in the field of education. The works carried out in this field include from very basic skills, like identifying faces, to the harder features like emotional adjustment in stressful situations. These investigations have focused on the evaluation of each different ability like perception and identification of emotions, their positive relation to empathy, emotion as good mind attitude, relationship between task and emotion, emotional knowledge and adjustment. The works which have been emphasized in the categories named before are studies related to

Perception of emotions carried out by Mayer, Di Paolo and Salovey which, in 1990, identified visual stimulations as facial expressions, colors and abstract drawing among university students.

In the same way, the study related to identification of emotions and its positive relationship with empathy is very significant (Mayer, Di Paolo and Salovey, 1990). The results carried out by this study have shown that if people who answered the test had a negative state of mind, their perception would have been aimed to negative effects of stimulation they are subjected to.

Thereby, this investigators group established that to understand emotional states of people around us, it’s requested to identify their emotions before. Related to studies carried out about The emotion as Facilitator of thought, Fernández-Berrocal could establish that in perceptive tasks, and in questionnaires like reasoning and problem solving ones, state of mind plays an important role in the structure and if information’s is shown (Fernández-Berrocal, 1995). Concerning the investigation of relationship between task and emotion, (Elliz & Ashbrook, 1988; Oaksford,

Morris, Grainger, Williams & Mark, 1996) it establishes in this investigation that, when task development is too hard and emotion is so strong, a deficit is produced in task execution.

Concerning the researches about emotional knowledge, Mayer & Salovey,(1995); Mayer &

Gener, (1996) studied the ability to recognize emotions in a talk; the results estblished that this ability comes from a higher sensibility towards internal and external emotional relationships of every individual. Besides that, it was find out that exists a great knowledge of connections between mind and emotion. Ending with categories named before, Josephson, Singer & Salovey

(1996) have carried out some laboratory researches about Emotional adjustment, starting from the fact that some people, going through negative emotions, resort to strategies to get emotional state of positive character. This research analyzed how people recover their particular memories to adjust their negative emotional state. Another research about the same issue concerning

25 investigation (Martinez-Ponz, 1997) is referred about how EI is related to perception of life quality, task command and depressive symptomatology.

Beyond the predictive potential of EI, each model is associated to some techniques for enhancing emotional intelligence, developed within educational centers as tools specific for learning through programs which allow to get socio-emotional competences.

Then, the following table 4 shows some of the most representative researches about

Emotional Intelligence in educational field.

Table 2: some of the most representative researches in educational field

Investigatio Source Instrument Sample Results n field s Fernández Self-report Teenage • Depressive students showed low score in - Berrocal, measure: spanish EI (low clarity and emotional repair), Alcalde Trait Meta- students of higher apprehension and rumiativ and Mood Scale ESO thoughts. Ramos (TMMS) (1999) • High EI among women than men. Self-report • Students with higher EI showed better measure: interpersonal relationship, more Ciarrochi, Schutte Teenage interpersonal satisfaction, more adaptive Chan y Scale australian behaviour of adjustment and better Bajgar students emotional identification. (2001) Ability measure: • High EI was related to higher empathy, Ciarrochi, MEIS University higher life satisfaction and better social Chan y australian relationship quality Caputi students (2000) • High EI was related to less physical Self-report symptom, lower social apprehension and PSYCHOL Salovey, measure: depression level, higher self-esteem, OGICAL Stroud, Trait eta- University higher interpersonal satisfaction, less ADAPTION Woolery Mood Scale american passive facing and higher use of active and Epel (TMMS) students facing strategy, lower rumiación level and (2002) perception of stress as less threatening. Self-report Salovey, measure: University • High EI (clarity) was associated to a Mayer, Trasxzzz american quicker and more effective recovery Goldman, students before an emotional stress caused Turvey experimentally. and Palfai

(1995) Ability • High EI was related to more positive measure: relationship with firends, better family Lopes, MSCEIT) University bond , low conflict and low negative Salovey american interaction with closest firends. and students Straus Self-report (2003) measure: Schutte University Ciarrochi, Scale australian Deane and students Anderson (2002) Fernández Self-report Teenage • High EI was related to low apprehensive - measure: spanish and depressive symptomatology and low Berrocal, Trait-Meta- students of disposition to outside thoughts; in Extremera Mood Scale ESO particular the ones who showed less and (TMMS) depressive symptoms got better school SCHOOL Ramos performance. RESULTS (under Self-report • High EI at the beginning of academic revision) measure: course predicted significantly the average Schutte mark of students at the end of the year. Shutte, Scale University • Checking cognitive abilities and Malouff, australian personality variables, the levels of Hall, Ability students universitary students EI predicted the Haggerty, measure: marks got at the end of the year. Cooper, MSCEIT University Barchard american (2000) students

Rubin Ability Teenage • High students’ EI was related to less (1999) measure: american aggressive behaviour in classroom, as well MEIS students as a better evaluation by teacher about DESTRUCT prosocial behaviour. IVE Extremera Self-report Teenage • Students with low disposition to excuse CONDUCT and measure: spanish their aggressive behaviour had higher Fernández Trait Meta- students of ability to distinguish their emotions (high - Mood Scale ESO emotional clarity), higher ability to Berrocal (TMMS) recover negative emotions and extending their positive ones (high recovery), higher Ability score in mental healthl, lower levelof measure: impulsiveness and a low

Trinidad and Teenage american students

Johnson MEIS disposition to cancel negative thoughts. (2002) Ability • High EI was associated to low use of Brackett measure: University tobacco in the last 30 days, low week use and MSCEIT american of tobacco and low use of alcohol in the Mayer students last week. Maldonad Self-Report • For men, high EI was related to a higher o measure: Teenage disposition to use illegal drugs, a higher and Trait Meta- spanish use of alcohol, a lot of fights and negative Extremera Mood Scale students of relationship with friends. (2000) (TMMS) ESO • High EI and better psychological adjustment were associated to a low use of tobacco and alcohol.

Source: Extremera y Fernández - Berrocal (2003)

1.5. The improvement techniques

1.5.1. The Social and Emotional Learning

During last years, the schools in every area of the world address and transform their programs in order to give the students just not only school competence but also the development of emotional and social competence. This trend has been improving in the area of emotional intelligence concept, in the importance about teaching and towards the development of these skills within the educational centers. This kind of teaching is well known in international school environment as SEL (Social and Emotional Learning).

Recently, the idea of social and emotional skills has been developed so much that we have different explanation and terminology to describe that skill. However, that explanation has

28 common issues and a wide and generalized language which could be understood because “almost every aspect of school life, place and community, including effective learning along with other people” describe those DFES skills (2003).

Explanation of competence described in DFES guide

Skills about:

- being a successful and effective learner

- keeping good interpersonal relationships

- being self-effective and self-efficient in problem solving

- management and control of intense feelings like frustration, boredom and anxiety

- good skills of resilience

- working and playing cooperatively

- playing right, winning and losing with honor, respecting opponents

- acknowledging and defending their own rights and the ones of others

- understanding and appraising the differences among the people, respecting their right to have believes and values different from his own (DFES, 2003)

Elias (1997) describes the emotional competence as “the skill to learn, manage and express social and emotional aspects in a way that allows the successful management of its own life tasks”, especially in: learning, relationship process, daily problem solving and adjustment of complex requests about growing and developing.

According to ENSEC (European Network for Social and Emotional Competence for children) they are related to resistance and socio-emotional competence. The comprehension of socio-emotional competence is “knowledge, predisposition and skills concerning

29 intracommunity interchanges and interpersonal process related to pro-social behavior, including the skill of problem solving, decision making, stress management, independence, rage management, cooperative and communicative skills (European Network for Social and Emotional

Competence, 2007,).

The SEL programs are based on the promotion of emotional and social aspects since childhood and pursue, as first goal, the prevention of problems and the development of this process to get the best psychological adjustment (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor &

Schellinger, 2011). This statement is based on the idea that some emotional and social issues could find reason on the adjustment as well as behavior issues and psychological maladjustment

(Payton et al, 2000).

1.5.2. SEL concept and its development

It’s the concept that completes SEL competences which promotes the development structures of youth in order to decrease risk factors and increase protection structures for a positive adjustment (Benson, 2006; Catalano, Berglund, Ryan, Lonczak & Hawkins, 2002;

Guerra & Bradshaw, 2008; Weissberg, Kumpfer & Seligman, 2003).

Starting from the idea expressed just before, social and emotional education programs are integrated within educational centers, considering that socio-emotional skills can be developed through learning and experience as well as they could be improved. In this way, school is considered the right place for learning, using and molding those skills in such way that the learner gets a range of competences and skills which can be used and implemented along the whole life process.

When the training of socio-emotional skills is set and integrated as a school task, it’s important to note that every educational center has to set its programs based on their needs, establishing what kind of skills needs more attention in order to create and implement an efficient and effective program.

Currently, there are two reference theoretical models on which emotional education programs are based and enjoy a higher empirical support:

1) Programs developed according to Ability EI model (Mayer & Salovey, 1997); which support competences development which includes the four branches of EI theoretical model: (a) emotional perception (b) using emotions to get a easier thinking (c) emotional comprehension (d) emotional management or adjustment.

2) Programs of social and emotional education based on emotional competence models

(Goleman, 1998) which focus on development and improvement of emotional competence’s five groups: (a) self-consciousness (b) emotional management (c) social consciousness (d) interpersonal relationship (e) responsible decision making (collaborative for academic, social and emotional learning, CASEL, 2005).

1.5.3. Researches carried out and program effects There are a lot of investigation groups which are carrying out investigations and researches to test the need of socio-emotional education in educative centers.

1.5.3.1. Experiences realized in Europe

The case study presented by the Department for Education and Skills in a book called

‘Excellence and Enjoyment is very significant: social and emotional aspects of learning’

(England, 2005) whose purpose was to rough some guidelines out in order to make an easier systematic perspective both in the field of teaching and in learning of socio-emotional skills for students and teachers.

DFES researchers have just stressed that learning is created in a social context which is defined by interactions and emotions they cause. In the same way, they claim that emotional and social process cannot be separated from cognitive process which influence student’s learning.

Moreover, programs of socio-affective development have a part in promotion of positive relationships which produce pleasant emotions like being confident and enhanced, happy, with well-being feelings, enthusiastic and curious: they create an appropriate and exciting environment for learning and a compromise with it (Greenhalgh, 1994; Weissberg & Elías, 1993; Silvestre,

1995; Perry, 1996; in Department for Education and Skills, 2005). The results obtained in this research show that children and youth, who took part in those programs of skills development, were successful in being more self-aware and aware about others, improved behavioral and emotional management and appeared to be more responsible. Such effects help learner to have self-confidence, allowing to recognize similarity and difference with other people, improving the ability to get and keep good relationships with their peers. Those does not allow to give in to social pressure and to solve conflicts in a positive way, or rather, they have improved their ability for recognizing their and others’ emotions: it allows to describe their own interests and values and it assess their qualities in a effective way (Department for Education and Skills, 2005).

This research, carried out in Sweden by Dahlin (2007), analyzed eleven schools with the aim to investigate about values development and social competences. The schools which joined that research are famous for adopting an alternative model used since 1919, based on the ideas of the

Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Those schools consider a child as a whole and his physical,

32 behavioral, emotional, cognitive, social and spiritual development (Rawson & Richter, 2000). In brief, learning is focused on values rather than skills, social and emotional learning are not produced directly.

Dahlin carried out the comparison among test answers accomplished by students who used

Steiner’s model and by municipal schools (control group). The results showed that students who get this perspective have much self-esteem, were more tolerant, with a higher sense of responsibility about social and moral issues. These results showed continuity with the ones found by Woods and others (2005) in UK schools where Steiner’s method is taught. It suggests that model promotes ethical and social development.

In Holland, since 2006, educational institutes are obligated to turn the ‘education for citizenship’ into the guideline about systematic use of social, emotional and moral education. It was used a program that was developed taking as theoretical references the social theory of learning (1986) and the emotional rational therapy by Ellis (1962). The program is aimed to teach emotional and social skills for behavior and to related mind process. The research carried out by

Diekstra (2007) analyzed the impact of the program at short and long range. The results showed the following advantages: skill to express in an effective way negative emotions and better relationships between students and their peers and between students and teachers. Moreover, it had a positive impact to the number of reported suicidal thoughts and intentions. Interviewed teachers reported they got advantage about setting and implementation of program, in particular about the areas of personal and emotional development as well as about the skill of perceiving and learning to react to the signs of school or educational environment, so that in the same way it pushed to increase self-confidence. Despite of the importance of socio-emotional skills, the investigations and the guide made by Dutch Government have not been completely adopted.

In Spain there are four investigation groups which have developed SEL programs set in different districts: Cantabria, Gipuzkoa, Catalonia and Andalusia. One of these the experiences was carried out by ‘Marcelino Botín’ foundation in Cantabria district with ‘Educación

Responsable’ (‘Responsible Education’) which follows a total and healthy growth of children and youth. This program underlines most of all a physical, psychic and social dimension aimed to improve balance and well-being, a positive school performance and a development of protective risk factors about violence, intolerance, failure, drugs etc.

This program of responsible education was focused and addressed in the following way: for

3-12 years old students, in 80 educational centers with 853 teachers and 16.552 students and their relatives, was given ‘Prevenir para vivir’ (‘Preventing for living’) program. The range 12-16 years old students, in 5 educational centers with 10 teachers and 150 students, used United

Nations Model. In the assessment set by Fernández-Berrocal (2008) teachers evaluated their own point of view about that project and their feeling about the impact on involved students. The results of teachers satisfaction about this program was: 91.8% satisfied or very satisfied, 93.55% has found it very interesting and finally 92.1% of families consider this project with a high o very high level.

The results suggest that this project had a positive impact on students and on the following aspects: expression of opinions and feelings, decision making, positive attitude towards health, ability to get relationships and self-confidence. The whole project has allowed the development of new assets and tools in order to support social and emotional learning which include audiovisual equipment introduced within the program since 2008. The other program, developed in Gipuzkoa district, in order to change school and community through an improvement of emotional intelligence and social skills, was adopted in different situations (educational centers,

34 families, community unit, and organizational environment). Some of quality results showed by dr. Muños de Morales are: involved teachers claim they improved their own emotional competences and the students’ ones.

Teachers noticed that the acts towards emotional intelligence have improved are about how conflicts between teachers and students are faced. This improvement could be explained through a better understanding of emotions.

The advantages given to program activities were the improvement of well-being feelings and the professional development of teachers. Then, the interpersonal relationships between students and teacher have been improved within educational centers where programs took place.

Concerning Grop’s experience (Group of investigation and psycho-pedagogical guidance) in

Catalonia organized by professor Bisquerra, it has been set a training plan of teaching through emotional education. The main goal was to improve personal and professional development about teaching.

This training was carried out through a cooperative meeting model which, as its name suggests, teachers cooperate with advice team in order to realize an emotional education program which will be implemented.

This advice program lasted 8 years with 18 activities in different educative centers: preschool, primary and high school as well as vocational training centers. 469 teachers took part to this project.

The program consisted of 60 hours training in the following issues: a) emotion and education: meaning of emotion, meaning of emotional education, kind of emotions and subjective well-being, health, motivation b) emotional education: antecedents, theories, goals, acting strategies c) emotional education content: emotional consciousness, emotional adjustment, self-

35 esteem, social and life skills d) emotional education in primary education e) cooperation in emotional education.

The results reveal that teachers improved their knowledge about emotional education of 16-

19%.

Last but not least, among the programs which took place in Spain, there is Intemo program which was carried out in Andalusia district by investigation group ‘Laboratorio de las

Emociones’ (Emotions’ lab) of Malaga University directed by professor Fernández-Berrocal.

Intemo program was aimed to children and adolescents, focusing on learning, development and reinforcement of abilities described in emotional intelligence model carried out by Mayer and

Salovey (1997), perception, use, understanding and management of emotions. This program contains a practical concept with methods which allow to develop each exercised ability.

Intemo program was used for three years in high schools, involving more 2000 students who attended 24 hours of training (Ruiz-Aranda, Cabello, Fernández-Berrocal, Salguero & Extremera,

2007). Each training meeting was directed by external staff which got previously a training about emotional intelligence. The following steps describe the detailed activities performed by participants, each meeting included just one step:

1. Perception, appraisal, and expression of emotion

• Learning the physical characteristics of different emotions through photos, scenarios, characters, and role-playing

• Recognizing emotions in different contents like newspapers and magazines

• Developing the ability to express emotions using new ways of communication

• Developing the ability to identify emotions in faces and matching faces with scenarios

• Discussing different situations and characters’ nonverbal communication

2. Emotional facilitation of thinking

• Introducing the idea that feelings matter and how they can be used in academic settings to improve personal achievement

• Discussing real situations where feelings should be taken into account

• Generating positive and negative moods among students and subsequently interpreting a poem, story, or real situation

• Generating positive and negative moods among students and subsequently proposing solutions to a hypothetical situation

3. Understanding and analyzing emotions; using emotional knowledge

• Acquiring feeling words through modern games (e.g., Taboo, Password, Scrabble, crossword puzzles)

• Understanding emotions by learning their significance, functions, and utility

• Introducing empathic abilities and raising awareness of different points of view in situations

• Analyzing the influence of thoughts on the experience of emotions; representing specific emotional states in a story and acting according to the feeling.

4. Reflective regulation of emotion to promote emotional and intellectual growth

• Increasing the ability to stay calm in different conflict situations

• Using real conflict situations from everyday classroom life to discuss new ways to face problems

• Creating a film forum to recognize, compare, reflect on, and consider characters’ performances

• Learning adaptive ways to handle emotions and creating a forum to discuss strategies

The obtained results, through which it has been realized a comparison between students who get trained and who not, show a relevant decrease about the dimensions related to school maladjustment: negative attitude towards teachers, negative attitude towards school and searching emotions. In the same time, it has been observed a decrease in variables related to clinical maladjustment: anxiety, social stress, depression, somatization and atypical nature. Concerning level of verbal and physical aggressiveness, students reduced such level getting a decrease about the expression of aggressive acts, like rage and hostility, so that training of socio-emotional skills turns out to reduce negative reaction styles and aggressive acts. This evidence shows the importance of EI as a preventive device of issues related to psycho-social maladjustment and mental health during adolescence.

Developing the Emotional Intelligence. Test and training to perceive, use, understand and manage emotion (D’Amico and De Caro, 2008) is an Italian software consisting of an assessment and a training part, respectively aimed to evaluate and improve the four-branches sub- skills of EI ability by Mayer, Salovey and Caruso (1997): emotional perception and expression, emotional understanding, using emotions to make some cognitive activities easy, emotional management about themselves and interpersonal relationships.

In order to make a pleasant and funny interactive process for the young subjects, four guide- characters were created with a funny and colored layout who represent, through the assonance or etymology of their Italian names, the four skill branches of emotional intelligence. They are called: Pircipò (Perception), Utor (Use), Captilla (Understanding) and Gerì (Management). They are all together ‘La banda del cuore’ (‘The heart group’).

The first part of program is aimed to evaluate the sub-skills which compose the four branches of emotional intelligence. This section was created to provide a test-retest process, that is a evaluation of subjects before and after training.

The second part of program concerns the training, necessary if a subject does not pass that test with a 100% of correct answers. This training, structured in a way that allows the subject to get practice on the four branches of emotional intelligence, has a feedback structure which lead the subject supporting it during the activities. Along with some incorrect answers that subjects can give, this software provides the user an automatic correction system which displays the right answers.

This training section is set through 11 activities and more than 40 exercises which compose an interactive process about learning and improving of abilities whose emotional intelligence is composed. The whole section is also reinforced by a feedback system in order to make the meta- cognitive thought easier. It’s possible to access the final test only if the previous test has been completed correctly. It can happen since first use if well-performed, otherwise since a retest successful try after training performance.

Training section consists of four steps, the same found in assessment part, which reflect the four branches’ theoretical model.

The first step of training, concerning perception, is aimed to get the ability to distinguish the basic emotions correctly. Then, some different incitements are shown (once again, animated and static, simple and complicated, real and abstract) with the purpose to show each correct combination among the different expressive modalities and verbal tags concerning emotions.

In the second area, children are lead to a ‘smart’ use of emotions, depending on performances requested in daily life or to a creation of emotions useful to get some results.

During this time, there are some socio-emotional problems to solve which request the subject to select the character who acquires emotional behaviors appropriate for that situation. After that the subject can give behavioral suggests, choosing them from a set of choices, to some characters on the scene watching their effect.

After this step there is the understanding one in which the child is encouraged to think about a possible change of an emotional state after some external events or cognitive internal processes, as well as about a possible combination of basic emotions in order to give complex emotions.

Then, there are some incitement-situations where some main characters could pass from an emotional state to a new one so the subject is induced to understand what kind of complex emotions can be produced by a combination of simple emotions, always indicating and explaining the correct answers.

During the management training, which is the final step before the test, there is a set of emotional problem-solving situations which is introduced requesting also to find the appropriate behavioral strategies to solve them. Those situations could concern personal and/or interpersonal area. Later every subject can find, using some guided-paths specifically created for that, some possible results of various behavioral strategies which were adopted.

Training section is followed by the test which is introduced by a screen which displays the congratulations to the user for the job just done and discloses the introduction of the most structured four problems which involve at the same time all the four branches of emotional intelligence. A preliminary exploratory step about the use of software (D’Amico & De Caro), which just concerned the assessment form, had as goal the performance measurement of some subjects, belonging to three different age groups, in the four branches of emotional intelligence as well as the features of instrument’s pleasantness and usability on a sample of 74 students. Each child wrote up, personally and in a single session, the assessment form and a short questionnaire about the level of instrument’s pleasantness and usability. The results showed that the assessment form has generally a good level of usability, as it appears by the upper-middle level and by the reduced level of perceived difficulty. There was not any significant difference concerning gender or school class. Some interesting results came up about the connection between emotional intelligence and educational performance. The presence of significant correlations between some areas of educational performance and the tasks about emotional understanding and interpersonal management agree with Barchard’s (2003) and Brackett & Mayer’s (2006) results who showed, through MSCEIT (Mayer, Salovey and Caruso; 2002), some important connections between academic and higher educational performance and emotional understanding and management, considering the ‘strategic’ area’s items of emotional intelligence.

However, those results have to be actually considered as preliminary because of instrument’s nature used to measure the emotional intelligence, which has not a psychometric validation yet, being at the moment just a tool created for before-after assessment within the processing program just described.

1.5.3.2. Experiences realized in USA

In USA, the Health, Emotion and Behavior Lab (Heb Lab) of Yale University is aimed to study abilities and emotional competences. Within this lab, Professor Marc Brackett and his staff created the investigation group ‘The RULER Approach’ which works to adopt emotional literacy’s programs in some institutes and to give competence to teachers and students. All that through test based on social and emotional learning.

‘The RULER Approach’ teaches five basic skills for an appropriate emotional development:

1) recognizing its own emotions and the others’ ones 2) understanding cause and effect of emotions 3) labeling each emotion 4) expressing emotions properly in a specific environment 5) adjusting those emotions in a way that they can develop safe relationships.

Adopting this program in classrooms allows to get successful results. Students’ school scores were higher; levels of anxiety and depression in students were reduced; level of empathy, social competence and leadership skills were increased and finally as aggressive behavior decreases the mood within school was considerably improved. So it has been achieved a school environment and some proper relationships between students and teachers.

The RULER program: getting emotionally intelligent schools

The RULER program, operating on socio-emotional education, is a method based on emotional intelligence and system theory. Those programs are the result of decades of investigations which demonstrated that knowledge and skill are related to emotional

‘Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating emotion’ (RULER).

The skills taught and developed with RULER are basic for teaching, learning and for a positive development as with adults as with students (Rivers & Brackett 2011; Salovey & Mayer

1990). RULER program is based on development of socio-emotional skills concerning teachers, parents, educational centers staff, every person responsible for students’s education and naturally students. First of all, this model introduces a training for adults whose role covers emotional skills to improve their relationships at school and during students’ lifetime or, in other words, concerning their educational, social and personal aspects. Adult people develop their own

‘RULER’ skills through which they learn to pursue an environment of emotional learning, supported by those tools included in this program which allow to set goals about improving self- consciousness and emotional adjustment (Brackett, Elbertson, Remenitzer, Alster, & Caruso ,

2011).

RULER model is based on the development of those skills owned by adults responsible of students’ education (teachers, parents, managers and staff of educational centers) and by students too. This model basically suggests that adults need to be educated to their role where emotional skills play an important part in order to improve relationships at school and during students’ lifetime (educational, social and personal aspects). Adult people develop their own RULER skills and learn to pursue a learning environment, which they support emotionally, through using some instrument’s programs which include a cooperative declaration of goals about learning environment and a visual help to improve self-consciousness and emotional adjustment (Brackett,

Elbertson, Remenitzer, Alster & Caruso, 2011). Teachers have been trained also in ‘feeling words curriculum’ for students, planned to integrate themselves within school curriculum of educational centers, with the purpose to increase emotional vocabulary of pre-school and primary school’s children and in turn to gain emotional skills.

Brackett et al (2011) suggest that the emotional vocabulary is the way by which children learn to identify, evaluate and understand their own thoughts, feelings and behaviors and their peers’ ones, developing strategies which allow them to manage carefully their emotions during their life. In particular, the ‘feeling words curriculum’ is focused on improving personal, social and intellectual aspects through improving vocabulary, understanding, abstract reasoning, critical thinking, self-consciousness, social consciousness, empathy and problem solving.

RULER program includes a big support through training. Each teacher works along with a

RULER qualified trainer who visits students, arranges classes, checks class plans, offers productive feedback and gives solutions and devices to help teachers in order to give quality lessons. RULER program has been implemented in one hundred schools in USA and other countries.

RULER program improves social and emotional environment of class and binds the competences for teachers and students. In a recent research, a test group and a control group from

62 schools were created by chance. The groups which implemented RULER program showed higher level of affective warmth and connectivity between teachers and students: teachers focused their interest towards students and they had more independence and leadership among the students. Classes which used RULER program enjoyed also a more positive learning environment, including much respect for relationships, good pro-social behavior, much enthusiasm for learning and low cases of bullying.

Teachers who used RULER program, compared to control groups which did not used it, showed less rage and frustration and higher support to students (Reyes, Brackett, Rivers, White

& Salovey, 2012). In other research, students who adopt RULER model got better final marks and appraised better teachers’ socio-emotional competence (leadership, social skills and studying

44 skills) compared with group control’s students (Brackett , Rivers, Reyes & Salovey ,2011).

Actually, teachers who implemented RULER with quality have students with higher scores in social competences index and emotional intelligence evaluated through MSCEIT (Reyes et al,

2012). In like manner, in a research with more than 1,000 participants, the students who got instructions through RULER program, lasted one year, increased their MSCEIT scores and got better marks for university entrance exam than control group students (Rives & Brackett, 2011).

Considering the whole results, they suggest that RULER program improves the classes in order to create a positive development as for teacher as for student.

Keeping on the investigations’ review related to SEL programs, they have been very productive in USA and for this reason some most representative researches will be described.

In meta-analysis researches carried out by Weissberg, Durlak, Taylor, Dymnicki & O’Brien,

(2007) of CASEL group in USA, they have been analyzed more than 207 SEL program researches on which a sample of 233,000 students of published or not published researches has been chosen. The programs included in this research had as main feature the improvement of social and emotional development through some competences such as: intrapersonal and interpersonal consciousness, self-management, establishing practical goals and improving responsible decision making. Participants were 5-18 years old who had not specific needs.

Weissberg observed the programs impact on attitudes, behavior and school performance.

The experimental group was compared to the control group in each following areas: a) social and emotional skills b) self-attitude, towards others and school c) positive social behavior d) behavior problems e) social stress f) school performance.

The results showed that programs had a positive impact on each of six areas just described.

In particular, it has been noted that experimental group got 11% more than control group in

45 performance’s standardized test. The most recurring positive impact that has been observed was in those students who are considered ‘at risk’ or show damaging behaviors.

In another meta-analysis carried out by (Durlak et al 2011), 213 educational interventions have been examined, where SEL development program of abilities was adopted, and 270.034 pre-school, primary and secondary students have been involved. This is one of the biggest and severely scientific researches which examined investigations and results about the interventions which support SEL in children, adolescents and young people. The results come out from this research suggest that SEL programs have a strong empirical support to validate its implementation. In the same way, they have been noted some advantages in development of social and personal skills, in decrease of behavior problems and in increase of pro-social behaviors and an improvement of school performance. Such results are the same of those found on the review of 19 meta-analysis which were published between 1997-2008 and were about the effects of SEL/SFL (Skill for Life) programs made by Diekstra and Gravesteijn (2008).

Other results of this meta-analysis claim that programs|effect is not reduced if they are given by teachers and school staff. This result suggests, according to Durlak, that SEL programs could be integrated in usual school practices and that there is no need to get external staff in educational centers. Finally, it has been found that SEL programs are successful in every educational level

(primary and secondary) and it does not matter if they are adopted in urban and/or rural schools.

CHAPTER 2

WELL-BEING

2.1. Well-being concept

An explanation of ‘well-being’ could be described in the most of references as a ‘health’s flourishing state’ or a ‘flourishing economic situation’ (Garzanti, 1998). Actually, well-being is, with any doubt, a condition which involves every aspect of people and is typical of life quality.

Generally, well-being is perceived by people as a harmony state for them and for what is around them. This is the result of a multi-factor adjustment process which has as main feature the lifestyle.

The well-being concept is highly influenced by culture. In particular, in west countries well- being is every time related to economic index such as head income, educational level and life conditions (GDP, income etc.). In this sense, we usually consider that life quality appears when a social well-being is established. By this perspective, some researches were carried out and they associate those variables to gender, age socio-economic level, health and income situation ones

(García Martín, 2004). As in some east countries (or in some east cultures), well-being is mostly aimed and associated to more individual and deeper aspects including spiritual ones.

Living in a west society, it’s surely right to wonder what that involves for a person and its well-being, which is addressed to external things, and in particular to economic materialism which includes among various factors also a higher orientation to body rather than mind. So well-

47 being is associated to feel good about physical appearance, intelligence or money. This last factor is what sociological analysis by Bauman (1999) has focused: it refers about post-modern body which would have as main feature the feeling reception function. It is described as the integration of experiences when a person implements its ability to be stimulated and turning into a pleasure instrument. This aptitude is described by the author as well-being (or aptitude) whereas the lack of well-being would be equivalent of an obduracy and a limited aptitude concerning new experiences and feelings which could be described as indifference, weakness, apathy also towards incitements and depression. A body with a good health seems to be very sensitive and well-harmonized to any kind of pleasure. Actually, physical well-being means to be ready to get any incitements. Also depression is nowadays commonly associated to reduction or lack of willing to come out to have fun and the most common expanding disorders are called eating disorders. Concerning this, Bauman claims that actually the body well-being, in particular, is threaten from everywhere (1999) and he finely underlines the paradox about focusing the attention on body that puts well-being in danger: under this centralization yet, this turned into a basic fact of people well-being.

On the other hand, there is no a full consent about the explanation of term ‘well-being’ within the scientific community. The existing explanations about this term are not totally explicit and generally are related to the instruments used to measure it. It could be featured by three aspects: its subjective feature, referred to people’s own existence; its global dimension because it includes the enhancement of subject in every aspect of its life; the positive appreciation because its simplicity goes beyond the real absence of negative aspects (Diener, 1994).

2.1.2. Psychological well-being in science

The World Health Organization (WHO, 1992) makes a correspondence between well-being's explanation and health’s one: “a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being, not only the absence of discomfort or disease”. In the same sense, the WHO describes life quality as the “perception which a subject owns about the place during its existence, in a cultural environment, in a value system within it lives and related to its goals, expectations, rules and fears”. Those are wide constructs and influenced in a hard way by subject’s physical health, its psychological state its independence level and its social relationships so that by its relationship around it: models which have passed from a ‘bio-medical’ to a ‘bio-psychosocial’ meaning.

Through this new idea of well-being, it’s not correct to state that well-being and discomfort, health and disease, as two separate states which could be distinguished like ‘present’ or ‘absent’ but it would be correct to claim that those are two ideal extremes of a continuum and then this is a dimension divided into different levels and well-being qualities.

Several researches recognize the complexity of well-being construction which includes three basic elements: subjective, social and psychological well-being.

2.1.3. Subjective well-being

According to Diener (1994), subjective well-being has three main elements: its subjective feature which is supported by personal experience; its global dimension that includes an enhancement or judgment of every aspects in lifetime, the necessary inclusion of positive measures so that its simplicity goes beyond the real absence of negative aspects. Subjective well-

49 being has been traditionally interpreted, according to Diener (1995), as a whole of three categories which gather together or deal with happiness and well-being: first category describes well-being as the positive enhancement made by a subject about its own life, this gathering is related to ‘life satisfaction’; a second category is the one which that influences the predominance of feelings or positive affection over negative ones, this point of view is suggested by Bradbum

(1969) through the development of affective balance scale; the third aspect is very close to philosophic and religious setting and conceives happiness as a grace virtue, the explanations of this last category could be considered as regulatory because it’s not considered as a subjective well-being but as the possession of attractive quality (Coan, 1977).

Finally, subjective well-being has raised a great interest mainly for behavioral science and this is showed through popular surveys so that technical revisions. Concerning that, Zani &

Cicognani (1999) recognize three features which are responsible of well-being idea’s appearance.

In the first category, they have been recognized political and economic reflections which are focused on an ideal society that promises happiness. Here it’s showed the practical importance of well-being idea: in this category we can observe the quality measures used by countries to describe national well-being. In the same way, social investigators focused their researches on different social indicators such as: age, sex, race, education, employment and incomes that describe life quality (Campbell, Converse & Rodgers, 1976; Strack, Argule & Schwarz, 1991).

The second category, which adjusts better to subjective aspect, corresponds to the role of psychosocial and psychological processes. In this category, they are focused on the adaptation perspective and the control perceived by the people in some situations, that is about self-efficacy which allows the subject to use different facing methods or strategies, addressed to solve specific

50 tasks properly. Therefore, there is a perspective that gathers internal factors and recognizes the influence of social judgment’s internal processes which come from social comparison theory and multi-level methods. Those models stand out for their subjective parameters’ importance of life quality because all the processes are focused on the state of mind and subject’s affections: about the way to understand the surrounding environment, the expectations, the skills and adaptation strategies.

Social comparison and the one made with its own life means how the subject, concerning this comparison, puts in relation his life with the others’ one (realized with the closest people).

People will be happy also in case of issues only if their life is better than the ones of surrounding people, otherwise they will be unhappy if other people have a better situation. In this second case, there is the same development but it’s referred to its own condition of past, present and future life.

A third category rises from a very good relationship with the subject and what surrounds it and those resources which make its values true and could allow to follow and reach its goal and personal needs. In this sense social roles are very important because help to increase the well- being feeling, the social network as active relationships and the satisfaction related to them.

2.1.4. Social well-being

Analyzing social well-being, we can observe that it has been noticed that it’s possible to find some meanings related to it or that bind it to social contact and interpersonal relationship

(Erikson, 1996), to dependence and community contact, to friendship’s active relationships and social participation (Allardt, 1996), to marriage and family (Diener, 1994), to social resources

(Veenhoven, 1994), to fatherhood-related experiences (Ryff, Schmutte & Lee, 1996) and to social dynamics’ operating (Smith & others, 1999). Finally, social well-being is “the enhancement we make about circumstances and the operation within society” (Keyes, 1998, p.122) and it consists of the following dimensions:

1) Social Integration or relationship quality evaluation kept with society and community.

Social integration means also being a part of community, feeling that people belong to it, being supported and sharing things in common with the group, that is the community as a comfort source. The relationships with social surrounding make the satisfaction of need dependence, affiliation and belonging easier.

2) Social Acceptance: It’s related to the level of enjoyment that is experimented by knowing and feeling that one belongs to a specific group or community (confidence, acceptance and positive attitudes towards other group or community members). Moreover, it means also the acceptance of positive and negative aspects of our life. Generally, both indicators would be indicators of mental health. Social acceptance indicates that a person has in general a positive attitude towards the others although sometimes the behavior is complicated or unintelligible. This dimension is related to the perception of those relationships with others that allow to accept themselves and get self-esteem.

3) Social Contribution: It’s referred to the feeling which one has about being an important

(basic) member within society and about something useful to give to the world. Social contribution is the feeling to have something positive to give to the society and to enhance personal activities: those make motivation and life purpose easier. It’s perceived that the relationship with social surrounding makes having goals and life purpose easier.

4) Social Actualization: It’s referred to the confidence which members of a group have towards the increasing potential and the development of a society, as well as towards its ability to produce well-being for its members. Social actualization is believing that social world develops or can develop itself better. It’s associated to the perception that the environment allows a personal growth.

5) Social Coherence: it regards the ability to understand social dynamics, quality perception, organization and operation of social world. Moreover, it would include the care of getting information about the facts of the world. Social coherence is believing that world is predictable, intelligible, logic and so controllable, as well as it is concerning and being interested. It’s noted that the relationship with social environment makes easier to manage and dominate its own instruments.

2.1.5. Psychological well-being

As observed about subject well-being, it has been noted a specific interest about the research of affections and life satisfaction, whereas psychological well-being has focused its attention on the development of skills and personal growth, both perceived as main indicators of positive operation. So, through personal growth and its specific interest for personal development, the style and the way to face life challenge represent the concentration and the stress to get our goals.

Therefore, the earliest concepts of psychological well-being are developed around some concepts as: Self-actualization (Maslow, 1968), Full-operation (Rogers, 1961) or Maturity (Allport, 1961).

However, considering its theoretical significance, none of them had an impact enough relevant about well-being research, due to absence of reliability and effectiveness on measuring process.

Seeking a point of convergence on the general features of those expressions, we found the multidimensional model of psychological well-being by Carol Ryff (1989) which consists of six dimensions: self-acceptance, positive relationships with others, autonomy, environment control, life purpose and personal growth. These are shortly described as follows:

a) Self-acceptance or positive attitude towards the ego (“I am satisfied with myself”) associated to self-esteem and knowledge of self. Self-acceptance is one of the main features of well-being. People try to feel good with themselves even if aware of their own limits. Having positive attitudes towards itself is a basic feature of positive psychological operation.

b) Life purpose or having goals and feeling of life direction associated to motivation for acting and developing itself (“I have an exact direction and goal in my life”). People need to establish their goals and identify some goals which allow them to give a sense to their life.

c) Autonomy (“I have confidence in my opinions even if they are opposite to popular ones”).

In order to support their own individuality in different social situations, people need to establish their own believes (self-determination) and keep their independence and personal authority (Ryff and Keyes, 1995). People with autonomy are able to stand the social pressure beyond measure and to self-adjust better their behavior (Ryff & Singer, 2002).

d) Control or domination of the environment (“I think I’m good at managing daily tasks”) associated to locus of internal control and a high self-efficacy. It’s associated to social coherence or belief that the world is predictable, intelligible, logical and also controllable as well as concerning and being interested about the community. The impotence or the lack of power on the aspect of low control expectation, or low domination of the surrounding environment, as well as low control of social world are the negative equivalent of personal control’s alienation and social

54 coherence. A low perception of control instrument is associated to high reaction to stress, much discomfort, and kind of facing less adaptive.

e) Positive relationships with others or the belief to get relationships of confidence, passionate, empathic and with familiarity towards the others (“People can describe me like a person who shares and who is willing to share its time with others”). It’s the ability to keep positive relationships with other people (Erikson, 1996; Ryff and Singer, 1998). People need to keep stable social relationships and having trusted friends. The ability to love is a basic feature of well-being (Allardt, 1996) and, as a consequence, of mental health (Ryff, 1989). So, several researches carried out during the last twenty years (Berkman, 1995; Davis, Morris, & Kraus,

1998; House, Landis, and Umberson, 1988) indicate that social isolation, loneliness and the lack of social support are firmly related to the risk of getting disease, reducing the lifetime.

f) Development or personal growth (“My life is a continuous process of change, learning and development”) associated to the conception of evolution and positive learning of a person. A great positive operation requests not only the features described previously: they need the responsibility to develop their potential yet, in order to keep growing as a person and developing in the best way their skills (Keyes et al, 2002). This involves the dimension called ‘personal growth’.

Another theoretical perspective, which has raised interest, has been developed by Deci and

Ryan who suggest the self-determination theory, interpreted as a perspective regarding human motivation and personality which uses traditional empirical methods. It uses a systematic meta- theory which underlines the importance of internal human resources’ evolution for the development of personality and the self-adjustment of behavior (Ryan, Kuhl & Deci, 1997). In

55 brief, this is the investigation area which cares about the trends concerning personal growth and the innate psychological needs which are basic for self-motivation and the integration of personality, as well as the conditions where stand positive processes. This theoretical model identifies three necessary features, essential for a good working of inclination at growth and integration, also for a social productive development and personal well-being. These features are: the need to be expert (Harter, 1978; White, 1963), to get relationships (Baumeister & Leary,

1995; Reis, 1994) and to have autonomy (de Charms, 1968; Deci, 1975).

2.2. Measuring well-being

The three parts of well-being are: subjective well-being, social and psychological need.

Considering their different features, they have improved the use of different measuring instruments. The psychological instruments chosen to investigate subjective well-being are surely self-information scale that means those scales consisting of different affirmations about which a person expresses its level of agreement or disagreement in a quantitative way on a number scale.

Considering that the features of internal and subjective life satisfaction is not objectively measurable, researchers have found that the most appropriate way to measure subjective well- being has been the use of subjective information as the answers to tests or interviews. This method is based on the assumption that subjective well-being is the same of a life attitude and that this attitude is quite stable and so measurable in a reliable and quite efficient way.

However the use of self-report scales has created criticism and disagreement since it has been claimed that they do not represent with accuracy the internal states of a person, the given subject: it could be influenced by distortion system at the reaction to ego-defensive function, like the denial of emotional reactions and the motivations associated to the need to show a good

56 representation of ego (social desirability). This system and motivations have actually pushed the person to ask a more satisfying life as in real life, along the moral and social rules of group or culture.

Nevertheless, self-report measures influence just a part of that issue, at the expense of other aspects, and for this reason they need to adopt a more flexible and multi-methodological perspective which undertakes to use, in addition to self-evaluation instruments, other instruments which allow to get other aspects of well-being that can’t be measurable through auto-information scales.

The scales which measure subjective well-being could be divided into two groups, according to the features which have to be measured: Affective/Emotional (positive or negative emotions which are related to judgment processes), separated into the most emotional factors like changing mood which reflects not only judgment processes but also more unconscious dynamic processes;

Cognitive/Evaluative element of structure (life judgment, about people who are satisfied of their existence).

Moreover, subjective well-being could be measured in a more global way through scales which measure global satisfaction for life like ‘Satisfaction with Life Scale’ (Diener et al, 1985a) or in a more specific way through scales which offer a clearer and more complete perspective of different structure’s features (work, family, relationships etc.). The choice of the instruments depends on the needs of the researchers, on the aspects of subjective well-being to measure and on gathering information.

Among the scales which explore affective/emotional element, they can be identified:

Affective Balance Scale (ABS) (Bradbum, 1969), Positive Affect and Negative Affect Scale

(PANAS) Watson and others (1988) and the Profile Mind State (POMS) by McNair and others

(1981-1991, Italian version by Famè and others).

The Bradbum ABS consists of 10 items divided into two sub-scales, each of them consisted of 5 items, one for positive and the other one for negative affect. The answer is dichotomic

(Yes/No) given to specific questions concerning if people have felt any kind of emotion during last week. This scale is based on an emotional well-being model which is concerned as the difference between these two dimensions evaluated as independent. Positive and negative affect get three features: one of positive affect, one of negative affect and a score obtained through the difference between these two kinds of affect.

The PANAS (Watson and others) is based on the same model of ABS which evaluates those two affective dimensions: positive and negative affect but, compared with ABS, it is a more detailed scale and has the best psychometric features. It consists of a sequence composed of 20 words which describe a variety of feelings and emotions, 10 positive and 10 negative, so every subject has to explain the level of intensity (from low or nothing to high) through which everyone has experienced feelings and emotions during a length of time.

The POMS (McNair and others), in opposite to ABS and PANAS, measures those two dimensions of affect and also evaluates the emotional component in different ways. It consists of a sequence composed of 58 adjectives related to the six dimensions of mood: tension and anxiety, depression and dejection, rage and aggressiveness, strength and activity, strain and slowness, confusion and upset. The subject has to indicate the intensity of its emotions experienced during previous week.

Among the scales which also investigate Cognitive/Evaluative component of subjective well-being there are: Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) by Diener et al (1985), Extended

Satisfaction With Life Scale by Allison, et al (1991) and Congruity Life Satisfaction Scale by

Meadow et al (1992). The SWLS, by Diener, is a scale which measure general satisfaction and it's integrated by five steps where subjects have to express their agreement or disagreement through a 7-levels Likert scale. Therefore, the subject has to express its complete judgment about general satisfaction, related to the aspects of its own existence, through a comparison of its life conditions with its own values, judgments and rules. However, this instrument has some limits: it allows to establish what are the parameters to evaluate used by people to express their judgment but it does not investigate the different considerations given to different aspects by each subject.

The Extended Satisfaction With Life Scale, by Allison and others, is a multidimensional scale, that is a scale whose goal is measuring life satisfaction in its different areas, whose total represents general well-being. It was created through extending the scale of Diener and others, reformulating five parameters for each of eight different life areas which were investigated. It consists of 50 statements divided into different groups of five statements about: general life satisfaction, social life, sexual life, relationships, the being, physical appearance, family life, school life and 10 statements about work life. The subjects have to answer expressing their agreement or disagreement to the statements through a 7-levels Likert scale.

The Congruity Life Satisfaction Scale by Meadows is a scale which measures life satisfaction comparing current conditions and a set of subjective or standard parameters included in that instrument yet. The subjects have to express their life satisfaction on each current standard through a 6-levels Likert scale.

Finally, there are instruments which measure subjective well-being and they can also enter the scale through just one item. These consist of just one statement which subjects have to accomplish or choose among different alternative answers which fit better to their positions and

59 indicating their level of agreement/disagreement with the affirmation. Those instruments could be divided if its part to investigate is more affective/emotional (happiness scale) or about cognitive/evaluation part (satisfaction scale). Some of these scales use graphics and pictures, chosen mainly when there are illiterate subjects or during their evolutionary age. Among these, there are the Cantril Ladder scale (1965) and the Faces-Andrews-Withey scale (1976). Surely, compared to one-item-scales, the scales which get more items have a higher importance and reliability, but otherwise they have the advantage of being very short and easy to use.

Social well-being does not enjoy many evaluation instruments, due to the lack of support of an adequate theoretical process.

We can identify two different kind of instruments related to the construction of social well- being, explained by McDowell and Newell: measuring scales of social adaptation and scales of social support. The attention was mainly addressed on the latter because social support has been considered as one of the parts of life quality.

In 1998, Keyes suggested a social well-being scale where every subject is evaluated through

5 social well-being items which have been identified: social integration, social acceptance, social contribution, social construction and social coherence.

Another model associated to social well-being is the sense of community by (McMillan &

Chavis, 1986). This model is divided into four dimensions: sense of belonging, influence, integration, needs satisfaction and emotional connection. An instrument for measuring the sense of community is the Italian Scale of Community by (Prezza & Costantini, 1998), made by two items.

Considering that some authors claim that psychological well-being’s structure consists of two dimensions related but separated, one negative for discomfort and one positive for well- being, in order to evaluate positive psychological well-being there is a use of some instruments which investigate some aspects of psychological well-being. Although they are not created for this purpose, they are used along with social well-being measures. Among those instruments there are scales which evaluate self-esteem, control locus, self-efficacy, competence and these are represented as indicators of some psychological well-being’s positive aspects. In the same way, those scales are used for the evaluation of anxiety and depression, mixed to subjective well-being scale for measuring negative psychological well-being.

Among these, we found the ‘Berne Questionnaire of Subjective Well-Being’ (BSW) by

(Grob, 1995) which evaluates psychological well-being using two main dimensions: general well-being and discomfort. Satisfaction consists of four dimensions: 1) positive attitude about life

2) self-esteem 3) depressed mood (or lack of this) 4) joy of living. Discomfort instead consists of two dimensions: 1) problems 2) complaining and somatic reactions. Those subjects have to answer on 4/6-levels Likert scale.

Besides the formulation of psychological well-being model introduced by Carol Ryff (1989), the author planned an instrument, the ‘Psychological Well-Being Scale’ (PWB), with the purpose to evaluate the six dimensions of positive psychological working introduced by that model: autonomy, environment control, personal growth, positive relationships with others, life purpose and self-acceptance. The PWB is a self-report questionnaire. Its items are equally divided into six subscales which represent the six dimensions.

There are different versions of this instrument: the first (Ryff, 1989) consists of 120 articles,

20 for each dimension; a second version (Ryff and Essex, 1992) consists of 84 items, 14 for each dimension; finally a third version (Ryff and Keyes, 1995) consists of 18 items, 3 for each dimension and it’s used for a large scale researches national or international-wide. Each article is expressed as an affirmation and the subject is encouraged to express its evaluation indicating its level of agreement or disagreement to the affirmations according to 6-levels Likert scale.

There are also other method to evaluate well-being like the study of daily experience whose goal was to investigate the well-being experience of the subject in life background, in the environment and in the interactions with other people, through the use of a diary where the subjects are encouraged to write down their emotions, behavior, thoughts and to express the social situations which they find during their compilation period. This measurement will be repeated that way in order to identify a connection among subjective well-being and activities carried out by people, kind and simplicity of their social relationships, daily moments, places etc.

Among these, we find the ‘Experience Sampling Method’ (ESM) by Csikszentmihalyi whose specific goal is to study the way to reverse the psychic energy during daily life.

2.4. Connection between psychological EI and health: short review of literature Considering that EI and well-being’s psychological structure are very recent in literature so far, we can draw from some researches which have investigated the possible correlations which are statistically significant between these two constructs through an appropriate use of measuring instruments. However, if we analyze the connection between EI (and generally among emotions)

62 and well-being (especially the subjective one), the number of the researches which study them increases considerably.

Zeidner and Olnick-Shemesh (2010) indicate that important relationships between EI and well-being concern only the measures related to the feature of EI and that the results obtained through the scales created to evaluate EI performance are inconclusive.

As Mikolajczak, et al (2008) have claimed, EI-Ability evaluates what a person can do whereas EI-Feature evaluates what it really does and, finally, allows to know what is the best to carry out but otherwise it does not allow that a person can improve its own well-being.

In this research, Zeidner and Olnick-Shemesh (2010) showed that, finally, EI-Ability is not related to any cognitive aspects not even to affective ones of subjective well-being (in comparison to EI-Feature).

2.4.1. Researches which connect PEB and EI-Ability

Now, we show a research carried out by Marjanovic and Dimitrijevic (2001) which uses

MSCEIT, TEIQue, RSPWB (Ryff and Keyes, 1995), Raven’s Progressive Matrices (Raven,

1938) and three WAIS sub-test (Wechsler, 1955), that is the repetition of numbers, similarities and information.

Starting from this investigation (which also considered the aspects of cognitive skills and personality features) the key discovery, that is one of the most interesting here, is that EI-Feature

63 seems to be a good indicator of psychological well-being whereas EI performance shows a very important correlation with it.

Beyond the main information shown before, the work of Marjanovic and Dimitrijevic (2001) deserves to be explained in detail in order to give interesting information. This research was carried out with 128 subjects (adult workers), 70 men 58 women, aged from 25 to 61. EI was measured through the Serbian language version of MSCEIT (Mayer and others, 2002) whereas

EI-Feature was measured through TEIQue by Petrides (2009). The authors also measured QI scores through a set of test, personality features drawn through the short version (16 articles) of well-being Ryff’s Scale (RSPWB or PWB).

Trying to gather each test for EI’s incremental validity, and according to the researches of

Zeidner and others (2010), it can be presumed that the EI measured by self-reference measures must be predictive of adaptation results (well-being) whereas the EI measured using measures of implementation must indicate weak or not significant connections with indicators of personal adjustment.

The results of this study seem to get along with the existent information about the increased validity in both two kind of EI measurement. This confirms the difference in its ability of prediction: in particular, it was shown that the behavior in the real life, examined through Feature measurement instrument, is a significant predictor of (personal) well-being more than cognitive ability and Big Five model. We can say the same for performance and emotional knowledge measurement obtained by Ability-Base model.

One more discovery shows the moderate connection between those two kinds of EI measurement which could indicate (according to the authors) a such difficulty in order to convert in a good way the emotional knowledge into practice.

Finally, the test of structure validity confirms the established classification of EI models, showing an evident difference on correlation sample between performance and self-reference instruments, especially in personality area.

2.4.2. Researches which connect WB and EI

The most of investigations provided evidence about positive association between EI-Feature and well-being, although, no less than other results, it’s important to separate theoretical and replied results from anecdotal ones. In particular, interpersonal skills have to get related to good personal and social relationships as well as to life satisfaction and subjective well-being. So, a better emotional adjustment should lead to a low stress perception and a high life quality, also subjects with higher EI have higher level of psychological well-being and happiness. Some results showed that the subjects who are able to manage the emotions of people in a good way seem to be less emotional to situational stress, to express more empathy and to have good social support which protects them from negative feelings. Moreover, they found some positive connections among EI, happiness (subjective well-being) and life satisfaction.

There four ways to observe a connection between EI and well-being (Zeidner and Olnick-

Shemesh, 2010). First of all, since people with high EI are really aware of their emotions and able to adjust better, they should find few problems and so should feel higher well-being.

Subsequently, since those people get more social skills and a higher social network’s quality,

65 these aspects could help to increase well-being. The third step claims that understanding our own emotions and those of other people leads to a better social and environmental adaptation, that is a higher well-being. Finally, people with higher EI feel more positive emotions than negative ones and it allows to feel a higher well-being condition (Di Fabio, 2012). A research published by

Ciarrochi et al (2001) investigate the connection between EI feature, evaluated by Schutte’s scale

(Schutte et al, 1998), and different results in theory associated to EI, in a large sample of adolescents. First of all, the results showed that EI-Feature, as desired, is positively connected with self-esteem and negatively to with anxiety (feature). After that, the authors found positive associations among EI, presence of social support, social support satisfaction and parental warmth. Strangely, since self-esteem and feature anxiety variables were put on low control, the connection had been keeping being significant (not for ‘parental warmth’ item): it means that EI has an important influence on those variables.

Moreover, the social support of friends and extended family was strictly more related to EI than the social support of parents or brothers and sisters. The issue about the direction of those connections is still open: are people with higher EI who are able to create the basic conditions to develop and keep a strong social support or are people with an important social support which allows them to increase their EI, thanks to this support? The same outcomes, beyond health measures, were found in a large sample of youth (Austin et al, 2005). EI was evaluated through the reviewed version of Schutte’s scale (Austin et al, 2004). It presents three factors: optimism/mood control, emotional evaluation and emotional use. The results showed that total scores of EI were positively related to the dimension of social network, to the social support’s satisfaction, to the past life’s satisfaction and had a negative connection with the units of alcohol got weekly as well EI was not associated to health condition (self-evaluated) not even to the

66 number of visits at the doctor’s during last six months. In addition, total score was negatively related to the connection between alexitimy and EI. The regression analysis showed that since personality factor has been verified, EI has proved to be a significant predictor of social network’s dimension but it did not play an important role as predictor of other results. Therefore, this research showed that EI has an incremental validity only for the dimension of social network, although others researches reported about EI’s incremental validity concerning personality, aspects related to life satisfaction and loneliness (Palmer and others, 2002;. Saklofske and others,

2003). Recently, the results of a research published by Austin and others (20120) proved that low scores of EI are related to a higher stress level among college students evaluated at the beginning of semester and before their admission as well EI mediated the personality impact on stress and subjective well-being.

So, has EI an impact on personal well-being (SWB)? In order to face this question it’s useful to examine carefully the research of Bar-On (2005) which analyzed this connection empirically.

This research describes well-being as a subjective condition which arises from a satisfaction feeling: 1) their own (physical) health 2) their interpersonal relationships (deeper/closer) 3) their employment and financial situation. This wide explanation of subjective well-being includes some key-issues used frequently in literature to describe this structure. Ryff (1989), Helliwell and

Putnam (2004) evaluate those particular aspects of SWB as basic features of its own structure whereas Oswald (1997) Clark (2003) and other authors highlighted the employment and financial fields.

In the research carried out in 2005, Bar-On used a test which roughs out a tri-factorial explanation of WB structure, as just described. This scale is based on the articles and on the factorial analysis of 16 articles which originally were conceived in order to test physical,

67 personal, interpersonal, professional and financial aspects of subjective well-being, on 152 items- beta version of EQ-I (Bar-On, 1997).

At the beginning of this investigation, 7 weakest items were removed and, after a Varimax rotation, it was carried out through 9 residual items which cause three factors clearly recognizable: three articles concerning interpersonal satisfaction about first factor (variance

33.8% ), one article about work and two related to economic satisfaction about second factor

(variance 14.1%) and finally an item related to general and personal satisfaction and two about physical health for third factor (variance 11.2%).

This instrument is based on a reference method of self-report which is still the method chosen for measuring subjective well-being (Huppert and others, 2004), despite some disapprovals pointed to this kind of evaluation for other purposes. Moreover, Helliwell and

Putnam (2004) firmly support the exclusive use of self-reference scales in order to measure this structure, as also the most of investigators who treat this model do currently. Through the use of this 9 items-SWB scale, the connection between emotional intelligence and subjective well-being was examined after that in order to adopt the multiple regression analysis on the normative sample of original EQ-I from North America. The results showed that the structures are highly correlated. Three most important predictors of EI and SWB which arise from regression model are the following: 1) same value 2) happiness 3) self-realization.

The regression analysis was then a three-factor model of EI correctly described, which affects subjective well-being and having a 60% of variance. we can claim that people who: 1) understand and believe in themselves 2) struggle for getting their personal goals and for using their potential 3) live in peace with themselves, others and life, get generally a feeling of well-

68 being. The three factors of regression model are also quite close to the results, for the most, concerning the factorial model of SWB’s measuring instrument.

Finally, these results proved that is possible to create models which could predict subjective well-being of EI levels, as predicted by the author.

Another research which investigated the connection between EI and well-being is Chandrani and Kulshrestha one (2006), which analyzed subjective well-being related to emotional intelligence and to locus of control.

The subjects involved in this research were 150 chiefs of different fields working at Hero

Honda Motor Ltd. In order to gather information, it was adopted the ‘Emotional Quotient Test’ by Chadha (2001), the ‘Social Reaction Inventory’ by Rotter (1966), the ‘Positive and Negative

Affect Scale’ by Bradbum (1969) and the ‘Life Satisfaction Scale’ by Andrews and Withey

(1976). The first test was used to measure the emotional intelligence of administrators, the second for evaluating the locus of control, the third and the fourth used for measuring subjective well- being.

Besides the statistical analysis of given test, made in order to verify a connection among the different structures, it was found a significant positive connection between emotional intelligence and subjective well-being, so that the results could show, for example, a significant positive correlation between EQ and three dimensions of life satisfaction. Moreover, the investigation results showed that subjects with high emotional intelligence got very high scores in positive affect and very low scores in negative affect. The authors claim that the reason of this difference within the group could be explained because people with high emotional intelligence are very happy, are successful in relationships and are able to balance emotion and reason. High emotional

69 intelligence helps to solve problems (Singh, 2001) and to make right decisions. Concerning people who have high emotional intelligence, they are able to recognize and adjust their and other emotions through acting in the right way at the right moment. They are also able to use these adaptation processes within social interactions (Bar On & Rarker, 2000) and they get a significant increase about positive affect and an important decrease about negative one.

The results showed that the subjects who had high emotional intelligence got very high scores in three dimensions of life satisfaction. Emotional intelligence helps people to face any situation and to make them psychologically well-adapted and balanced, as well as these factors allows to live a good and full of satisfaction life. Yates (1997) confirmed this theory. According to Yates’s results, the author showed that people with high EQ get high levels of achievement and satisfaction: this is correlated in an important and substantial way to job performance.

The conclusions concerning the locus of control showed also a significant correlation between subjective well-being and locus of control. The results indicate that people with internal locus of control perceive subjective well-being better than people with external locus of control.

In brief, according to what has been described here, the authors stated that both EI and a high internal locus of control are strongly related to subjective well-being.

Finally, it seems the researches confirm that we can abstract the feature of EI and, without a doubt, it is positively related to SWB. There is a lack of literature in the research of correlations between EI performance and PWB but some few researches which investigated this connection were not able to find a relevant and significant correlation between two structures. However, considering these few researches, the information available in this sense would be also useful for examining and verifying the presence of the previous correlation in future researches and the current working plans in order to go further along this direction.

CHAPTER 3

ANALYSIS AND DESCRIPTION OF MIGRATORY EVENT

3.1. Description of migratory event

Migratory movements are a issue of research always present, considering that it’s easy to claim that “human beings are migratory species”1. Currently, this is a recurring event in our global society so that recent information published by Caritas shows that more than 232 million people worldwide, that is 3% of world population, left their country in 2012 moving to another one. As in 2000 the appraisal indicates 175 million, showing a constant and fast growth of human mobility through the growth of world population. Migratory event is going to change the appearance of countries, towns and other places; in particular in Europe so that immigrants currently use common places as meeting and interchange point of their cultural knowledge.

3.1.2. Definition of second-generation immigrants

The migratory flow, which affected Europe during last twenty years, resulted an increasing presence of immigrants’ children, at school and at higher educational centers. In Italy, the presence of resident foreign students consists in part of second generation youth described

1 D.S MASSEY et al., World in motion. Understanding internaional migration at the end of millennium, Oxford, Clarend Press, 1998, in Maurizio AMBROSINI. Sociologia delle Migrazioni, Bologna, , Il Mulino, 2005, 15

71 according to European Council’s recommendation that: “considers second-generation immigrants the children of immigrants: born in the country where their parents emigrated, emigrated along with their parents, minors who reached their parents after family reunification or in a moment after the migration of one or both parents.”

This recommendation underlines that second generations have to be attributed, in strict meaning, to children of immigrants who get a part of their education or professional training in their new country.

Some very recent information published by the ‘Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca’ (MIUR) – the Italian educational Ministery – indicates that in 2013 there were about 800.000 foreign students which attended Italian schools, numbers which are still going to increase considering that during 2010-2011 their presence was of 710.263. This increase is attributed to the process of establishing and setting of second-generation children and adolescents, who had not Italian citizenship but were born in Italy, which has been very clear within the educational system.

Therefore, it is necessary to give attention to resident foreign people and to second generation, considering that there is the highest number of students with no Italian citizenship at primary school (276.129), at secondary school (175.120), at elementary school (170.972) and preschool (164.589). Concerning this information, this event appears to be really important because of its social involvements which bears.

Actually, it’s during childhood and adolescence that the integration policies can show their efficiency and efficacy, allowing second-generation immigrants to get instruments and social

72 capital comparable to their Italian peers which are basic for a happy and peaceful transition to adulthood.

There are a lot of differences among first and second generation immigrants (parents and sons); the second generation who lives in Italy has interests, life styles, consumer wants which they accurately tend to be like their parents’ ones. They hardly consider acceptable for themselves the way of subordinate integration which their parents adopted, described by

Ambrosini as the jobs of five ‘P’: “Pesanti, precari, pericolosi, poco pagati e penalizati socialmente” (“hard, uncertain, dangerous, little paid and socially penalized) through which the first generation was successful in getting an earned income and role in a foreign country. One more difference among parents and sons is represented by the searching of identity which has to be faced necessarily by second-generation immigrants because of their age. The transition from adolescence to adulthood appears to be very hard for second-generation immigrants. Considering that there is a dual wish to show and trying to be the same as their peers and otherwise to be different, they belong to a cultural system which comes from their ethnic origin. Due to this discontinuity, it’s possible to get some chances for social mobility or risks such as social anomy and frustration which might lead to negative behavior, feeling bad and social tension.

3.1.3. The Integration of Immigrants

Until 1980’s most of researches about immigrants were carried out on adult people and these results were also extended to childhood, as noticed by Michael Aronowitz in his article “The social and emotional adjustment of immigrant children: a review of the literature” (1984). This trend changed focusing the research on processing some important instruments in order to adopt

73 new policies and practices of public welfare aimed to promote social adjustment and cultural inclusion for immigrants, especially for children and adolescents (Inguglia and Lo Coco, 2004).

The researches carried out about adolescent immigrants can be divided into two groups: one made according to sociological perspective and the other one based on a psychological or socio- psychological method (Stodolska, 2008, 198). About sociological investigation, integration level are measured among immigrant adolescents and they are compared to other factors such as parents integration, school performance, autochthonous peers integration and school community

(Algan et al, 2010; Todorovska-Sokolovska, 2009; Messing, 2008, Cluster "Access and Social inclusion in Lifelong Learning", 2006; Lasso & Soto, 2005; Ringel et al, 2005). These researches examine various aspects such as social class, ethnicity, place of residence and the acceptance of traditional values concerning integration process (Stodolska, 2008).

On the other hand, the researches carried out through a psychological and socio- psychological perspective compare the integration and psychological well-being of immigrant adolescents (Xu and et al, 2010; Virta et al, 2004; Phinney et al, 2001; Silbereisen & Schmitt-

Rodermund, 2000; Berry, 1997). According to this typo of investigation, psychological well- being is often conceived as the lack of depressive symptoms, high level of self-esteem, feelings and positive expectations, general happiness, enthusiasm and life satisfaction. Through this perspective, the researches examine if newcomer immigrant adolescents feel higher level of problems about social, emotional and behavioral adaptation related to autochthonous and the factors which contribute to those differences. Many researches confirmed that immigrant children and adolescents show higher level of daze, such as anxiety and depressive symptoms, than non- immigrants (Bacallao & Smokowski, 2007; Vieno, Santinello, Lenzi, Baldassari, & Mirandola,

2009; Walsh, Harel-Fisch & Fogel-Grinvald, 2010) as well as behavioral and emotional problems due to a low adaptation to migration (Bagley, 1972; Gaertener-Harnach 1981; Rutter and others

1974).

Social integration is usually considered as an important part of immigrant children and adolescents’ social well-being. Despite that, nobody knows much about it. The researchers agree that social integration of immigrant children and adolescents with their mates is very important in order to understand the social well-being of adolescents. According to researchers, it’s probably that the social inclusion of immigrants with their peers has a great importance considering that the crucial step of family’s immigration process concern the immigrant adolescents who begin to think to themselves, to care about their future: they get started to meet their mates whose opinions bash the identification with family and the acquired behaviors. Such situation pushes adolescents with foreign origin to get a place within society in the same way of other adolescents, trying to keep their loyalty between what came around them and what they found out, between the world discovered through their parents and the one known by themselves, between what they would like to be and what they think must to be because of their origin (Massot, 2003).

According to this framework the investigation suggests that, in order to get social integration, it’s basic for adolescents to get friends for their emotional, psychological, social, educational and healthy adjustment (Lasso and Soto, 2005).

These recent researches indicate a connection between education and social integration.

Education is considered relevant for both: promotion of empowerment, inclusion and measurement of its results (Hannah, 2008; Liebkind et al., 2004). In this sense, the empowerment is described as the act of giving legitimacy to all the subjects of educational process. In particular,

75 the inclusive policies of Italian educational system are based on the law about immigration in its modified version of 30 July 2002, nr. 189, called ‘safety set of laws’ (legislative decree nr.

92/2008 converted by law nr. 152/2002) and on the last law of 15 July 2009, nr.94, which does not change the actions in order to admit foreign students at school and it’s based on the regulation nr. 394 of 1999. In brief, the laws produced by central government, the educational policies and the acts of local authorities are mainly based on four general principles which are: universality, common school, centrality of person related to other people and interculturality. The universalism also considers the rights equality for education of children without Italian citizenship, no matters their legal status, in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1989, art.28), ratified by Italy in 1991. The principle of common school establishes the tendency to include immigrant children in normal school classes as a good practice for improving socialization and daily relationships with their schoolmates.

Education plays an important role for the social integration process, setting itself as a key factor both for guests and for coming people which learn from each other (Hannah, 2008; Fuligni,

1998; Chen and others, 1997; Zhou, 1997). Strategies and suggests often identify and require the need of education about immigrant cultures and situation of their state for society members generally. The researchers also indicate that immigrants’ education, regardless their age, is very important for their social adaptation generally. There are a lot of articles about the contribution that education and training give to immigrants’ empowerment during social integration process

(Hannah, 2008). There are few researches which investigate immigrant youth about school integration (Entwisle e Alexander 1993; Messing, 2008; Cluster "El acceso y la inclusión social en la educación permanente" – “Access and social inclusion in permanent education”, 2006;

Levitt et al, 2004; Madison, 1978). Such researches tend to suggest that many immigrant students have not much school difficulties as it was supposed. School success is one of the most important indicators for social adaptation and actually it depends on cognitive skill and motivation (Fuligni,

1998; Chen et al., 1997; Zhou, 1997).

3.1.4. Discrimination and Psychological Well-Being

Ethnic discrimination is one of the most relevant risk factor of immigrant adolescents’ psychological well-being (Romero et al 2007). Discrimination could be perceived as an unfair and indifferent sign because of ethnic, race and daily abuse which low-status groups face with

(Blank, Dabady, & Citro, 2004; Edwards & Romero, 2008).

A recent research showed that perceived discrimination has a significant prejudicial effect on immigrants’ psychological well-being and that the only protective factor of immigrant adolescents’ psychological well-being is related to teachers support which is fundamental for psychological adaptation process of immigrant adolescents, considering that youth who joined this research and showed to get a great support by teachers actually appeared less depressed

(Cristini, Scacchi, Perkins, Santinello & Vieno, 2011). So the support rule played by teachers could be strong especially for adolescents, due to immigration process and the setting process stops other forms of social support by friends, parents and other family members (Hamm, 2000).

This unparental support connection with adults improves immigrant adolescents’ esteem, orientation and incitement which could protect them from negative situations, so that turning into a support structure in a receiving society where an immigrant adolescent could be a target of discrimination, lack of acceptance and prejudices.

3.1.5. Researches about IE involving immigrants

Migratory events and emotional intelligence have been generally studied separated.

Recently, these two areas of investigation get together in a research carried out in Spain through students of Cádiz county, with a considerable number of immigrants who have been attended school (Mestre et al, 2009). The goal of this research was to investigate if acculturation strategies get different levels of EI, measured through MSCEIT (Mayer, Salovey & Caruso, 2002; Spanish adaptation by Extremera, Fernández-Berrocal & Salovey, 2006), and to prove if it is related to exogroupal and endogroupal perception level as well the endogroupal tendency, using the ‘Sesgo

Endogroupal Inter-étnico’ test (SEI, Rojas et al, 2003). The results indicated that subjects who get higher level of EI are more receptive towards exogroup, that is towards multiculturalism, than who get lower scores. The investigators of this research are quite prudent about considering that results they got until that time are not crucial to claim that EI plays an important role about the development of positive perceptions towards cultural integration, concerning those cultures different from autochthonous one in a society which is getting more and more multicultural.

Other research realized by Schmitz and Schmitz (2012) is based on an existing connection between EI measured through ‘Trait Meta Mood Scale’ (TMM-24; Fernández-Berrocal,

Extremera and Ramos, 2004; German adaptation by Schmitz and Schmitz, 2011) and acculturation styles by Berry (1980) measured through ‘Acculturation Attitude Scale’ (AAS;

Schmitz and Berry, 2011). It also investigated a connection between psychological adjustment and well-being through Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWL; Diener, Emmons, Larsen and Griffin,

1985), Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS; Layubomirsky &Lepper, 1999) and Beck Depression

Inventori (BDI; Beck, Stern & Garbin, 1988). This research was carried out through a sample of

(N=349) of first and second-generation immigrants and revealed that high level of EI is positively related to well-being (SWL) and happiness (SHS) but negatively to depression (BDI).

Since literature showed the potential of emotional intelligence (Salovey and Mayer, 1990;

Mayer and Salovey, 1997) as a protective factor against those various aspects of social problems and decisive for well-being promotion, playing a fundamental role for establishing and keeping interpersonal relationships, recent researches established that EI can help to improve personal skills in daily life. In particular, it has been observed in educational area how the ability of emotional perception, comprehension, management and adjustment is very important for the adaptation within our own environment and actually contributes to the growth of psychological and personal well-being, in spite of the cognitive or school performance level of students

(Brackett, Mayer and Warner, 2003; D’Amico 2013; Fernández-Berrocal, Salovey, Vera and

Extremera Ramos, 1999;, Gil-Olarte Márquez, Palomera Martin 2006 Trinidad and Johnson,

2002).

SECTION 2

THE STUDIES

Chapter 4

4.1. General Introduction

Considering the evidence reported in the previous sections in which stressed that there are few studies that integrate EI, psychological well-being and migratory event. Below two studies that integrate these areas of study will be presented.

The goal of this research has investigated if individual levels of EI in adolescent immigrants of second generation are related to different indicators of psychological adjustment such as individual well-being and peer relationships. To this aim, a group of 266 students of two schools in Palermo: 63 immigrants and 203 autochthonous aged from 10 to 18 (M=13.6, SD=25.3) EI was measured using a recently published Italian test IE-ACCME (D’Amico, 2013) addressed to preadolescents and adolescents and aimed at measuring the four branches of emotional intelligence described in Mayer & Salovey’s model (1997) using both self-report and performance measures. Psychological well-being was measured using the scale by Ryff (PWBS;

Italian version by Ruini, 2003), and Moreno’s sociogram (Hofman, 2001) was used in order to explore social relationships among adolescents belonging to the same school classes. Finally, a reading comprehension test of Italian as second language (Center CILS, university for foreigners of Siena, Italy) has been selected as control instrument. These studies have an underlying reason which longs for investigating if: 1) individuals with poor adaptation could be characterized by low levels of emotional intelligence 2) emotional intelligence might be one of the key factors in social adjustment of immigrant preadolescents 3) improved emotional intelligence may have a

81 positive impact on social adjustment of immigrant preadolescents. In particular, the study no.1 investiagtes if the individual levels of emotional intelligence are related to other indicators of psychosocial adaptation, such as individual well-being, adaptation and success among peers.The study no.2 investigates whether training in emotional intelligence (IE) in pre-adolescent second generation immigrants, helps to improve individual well-being and social acceptance, promoting social inclusion.

The results of Pearson correlational analysis revealed that positive significant correlations exist among EI, psychological well-being and social acceptance. Moreover, the outcomes evidenced that immigrant students have lower scores in some aspect of emotional intelligence, well-being and social acceptation.

Study 1: DOES EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE PLAY A ROLE IN PSYCHOSOCIAL ADJUSTMENT OF SECOND-GENERATION ADOLESCENT IMMIGRANTS?

4.1.1.Method:

4.1.1.2. Participants: This research has been carried out with a group of 266 (males 91, females, 175) subjects, aged from 11 to 18. The students came from two schools in Palermo and belonging to the follow educational level: elementary school or high school. The group consisted of 63 immigrants and

203 autochthonous (M: 13.6, DT: 25.3). The percentage of immigrant students of second generation born in Italy is 68%; immigrant students born in their native country who live in Italy

82 for more than three years is 20%; finally, 12% is the percentage about those who live in Italy for less than three years.

4.1.1.3. Materials and procedures

4.1.1.3.1. Emotional Intelligence IE-ACCME test:

IE-ACCME test (Intelligenza Emotiva: Abilità, Credenze e Concetto di sé Meta-Emotivo,

D’Amico; 2013). This test allows to measure and evaluate the four EI branches described on

Mayer and Salovey’s model (1997): perception, using, comprehension and handling of emotions through different methods of measuring. It is addressed to subjects aged from 10 to 18, structured on the profile of believes that a person owns about emotions (CE), Self Meta-Emotional concept

(CM-E), emotional abilities (AE) and self-evaluation of performance (AP). The structure of the test consists 226 items in four sections which investigate the eight dimensions of identified emotions, in Mayer and Salovey’s model (1997).

Questionnaire of Beliefs about Emotions (CE): includes 16 items that analyzes the beliefs that the subject has on emotions, especially it investigates the believes of the subject relative to emotions’ role in perception and daily sensation, in facilitation of thought process, as well as the possibility that emotions could be comprehended and adjusted both personal and interpersonal level.

Questionnaire about Meta-Emotional Itself Concept (CME): It evaluates the abilities to recognize emotions through faces, pictures and sensations; the use of emotions in thought process; the lexical comprehension and the transformation of emotions; the handling of emotional states at a personal level and the relationship with others.

Emotional Ability Test (AE): This section explores the emotional abilities of the subjects, as estimated in ability-based test, investigating them as described in Mayer and Salovey’s model

(1997): Perception of emotions (in face and picture); Facilitation of emotions in cognitive process

(Use and sensation); Comprehension of emotions (mixing and transformation); Situation handling of emotional problem solving (interpersonal and intrapersonal)

Ability Self-Evaluation (AP): This scale is given during emotional ability test. Subjects are invited to self-evaluate their own performance, consisting of carrying out their tasks provided by emotional ability test.

In the case of this study, it was decided to use the scoring criteria of general consensus

4.1.1.2. Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWBS):

PWBS (in Zani, B ., & Cigonani, E., 1999); this scale analyzes individual well-being, using a self-report questionnaire which investigates the six dimensions of psychological well-being suggested in Carol Ryff’s model (1989). It stated that well-being is showed as multi-dimensional and dynamic process, emphasizing the positive working mediated by the development of abilities and personal growing (Diaz et al; 2006) which includes various and multiple aspects described here in a row: 1) Positive relationship with others; 2) Sense autonomy;. 3) Environment control; 4) Personal grow; 5) Life goal; 6) Self-acceptance. This research has chosen the

Italian version with 18 questions, 3 for each dimension.

Subject has to express the compliance level with the sentence reported on the scale. The scores of the answers are given according to a 5 point Likert scale: 1 point totally agree, 5 points totally

84 disagree. Questions negative-expressed are counted in opposite way so that final result represents the self-evaluation of the subject for this scale. Total score for each scale is evaluated adding

“totally agree” degree of each question.

4.1.1.3. Moreno’s sociogram:

In order to investigate social relationships existing among adolescents and pre-adolescents integrated in the same school class, the method based on Moreno’s sociogram test (Hoffman; 2001) has been used. As its own name says, it is a sociometric test which allows to diagram social relationships of group’s integrated. Sociogram tends to evaluate relationships or friendly and affective bounds which converge or diverge regarding members of each class, accounting this test as a useful device to identify relationships among immigrants and autochthonous. The method used to gather data takes account of processing of four questions which fit to two criteria: affective, related to liking/disliking and functional, connected to subject’s abilities. Two questions concern affective parameter: one of those expressed in a positive way (affective acceptance), other in negative (affective rejection); this process is repeated for functional parameter with a question expressed in a positive way (functional acceptance) and other in a negative way (functional rejection). There are three answer options for each question where each student can choose three classmates giving them an order of priority (1 = first chosen; 2 = second chosen; 3 = third chosen) this order of preference was made an investment of score. The total score for each student was obtained by summing the number of choices received by each of the questions which represented by each criterion of sociogram. He was also performed an analysis of preferences (number of choices received and dialed) having as variable and indigenous immigrant status.

4.1.1.4. Reading Comprehension test:

Developed for the foreign students center of Siena University in Italy, this test has been gave to the research participants based on reading elaborate questions and sentences in Italian language.

As control measure, a reading comprehension test of Italian as second language has been distributed. This test consisted of three short written exams to read: 1) First, reading test. It had a text with a sequence of four questions, multiple answers-optioned, and just one correct answer.

Maximum score was four points, one point for each correct answer; 2) Second test consisted of reading a text where subjects had to find an information made by 9 sentences chosen. Maximum score was four points: one point for each correct answer, no points for unanswered question, -0.5 points for each wrong answer; 3) the last exercise concerned a combination between four elements and eight available answers. Maximum score was four points: one point for each correct combination, no points for wrong answer or not expressed. Total score of reading comprehension test is maximum 12 points.

4.1.1.5. Process:

Informed consent was requested to educational institutions, guaranteeing anonymity and personal information of participants for carrying out this research. After educational centers’ consent, these tests were given to each class, chosen for the presence of immigrants.

4.1.2. Results:

SPSS-19 statistical package was used to analyze data come out from the study. Along these lines, we carried out a correlational analysis of area and task score of the scale: Questionnaire of

Beliefs about Emotions (CE); Questionnaire about Meta-Emotional Itself Concept (CME);

Emotional Ability Test (AE); IE-ACCME Test among the six dimensions psychological well- being scale, which are reported in table 3.

These data show many important connections among evaluated variables by IE-ACCME and psychological well-being scale (PWBS). The correlation observed among IE-ACCME total scores of Beliefs about Emotions questionnaire and PWBS dimensions: positive relationships (r=

.257, p<= .01), personal growth ( r=.288, p<= .01) and self-acceptance ( r=.223, p<= .01).

Concerning the correlations found between IE-ACCME Meta-Emotional Itself Concept scale and the six dimensions of by PWBS, there are relevant connections about total scores and autonomy ( r=.171, p<= .01). and self-acceptance dimension ( r=.190, p<= .01)..

TABLE 3: Summary Simple and Partial Correlations of reading comprehension test and the IE-ACCME test (D' Amico, 2013) And The

Psychological Well - Being Scales By Ryff (Pwbs: in Zani, B ., & Cigonani, E., 1999) .

Well-Being Well-Being Well-Being Well-Being Well-Being Well-Being Positive Environmental Scale Score Relationships Autonomy Mastery Personal Growth Purpose in Life Self Acceptance r p-r r p-r r p-r r p-r r p-r r p-r CE-TOT .257** .228** .102 .096 .030 .028 .288** .260** .013 -.011 .223** .228** CE scale CE-P .029 .050 .106 .110 .039 .039 .138* .167* -.118 -.108 .165** .164* (Beliefs .204** .148** .034 .023 .086 .086 .270** .215** .101 .064 .057 .063 About CE-F Emotions ) CE-C .164** .133 .088 .082 -.119* -.122 .121* .086 .062 .041 .197** .201** CE-G .205** .207** .015 .014 .052 .052 .146* .146* -.025 -.029 .108 .109* CME-TOT .002 .015 .171** .173** .082 .083 .068 .085 .071 .079 .190** .189** CME scale ( .019 .033 .127* .130* .051 .051 .127* .147** .000 .008 .147* .147** Meta CME-P Emotional CME-F -.012 .013 .085 .090 -.002 -.001 .081 .112 -.050 -.036 .215** .215** Self- -.027 -.024 .113 .114 .028 .028 -.064 -.062 .083 .087 .082 .082 Concep). CME-C CME-G .015 .003 .059 .057 .103 .103 .006 -.007 .106 .100 -.009 -.008 AE-TOT .271** .156* .101 .089 .025 .022 .414** .322** .149* .077 .049 .068 .224** .122* .067 .051 .007 .002 .403** .322** .136* .075 .060 .075 AE scale ( AE-g-P Emotionale AE-g-F .079 .015 .016 .004 .013 .010 .246** .191** .069 .032 -.014 -.010 Abilities ) AE-g-C .261** .153* .123* .113 .038 .036 .311** .205** .113 .041 .054 .071 AE-g-G .249** .162* .041 .024 -.023 -.029 .363** .285** .195** .146* .019 .028 Management G-FAI .280** .182** -.024 -.052 .004 -.001 .349** .255** .176** .117 -.017 -.010 DO G-Fai/G .287** .192** -.014 -.039 .022 .018 .365** .276** .188** .132* -.007 .001 Note : (*). *p <.05 ; **p <.01

Concerning connections found between the scores of Emotional Ability test of IE-ACCME, some important connections were identified with the following dimensions of PWBS: positive relationship ( r =.271, p<= .01)., personal growth ( r =.414, p<= .01)., personal growth ( r =.149, p<= .05).. In addition, highly significant correlations between test management emotions and make the following dimensions of psychological well-being positive relationships, personal growth and purpose in life were observed.

On the other hand, in the table 5, some negative correlations came out from total scores of

IE-ACCME of Beliefs about Emotions questionnaire and in affective and functional rejection parameter of sociogram.

Some correlations were identified between total scores of Meta-Emotional Itself and the four parameters evaluated through sociogram, where some substantial connections were spotted, in affective parameter of acceptance.

About connections between total scores of emotional ability test and sociogram parameters, substantial positive connections were observed compared with functional and affective acceptance parameters. Concerning functional and affective rejection parameters, negative correlations were found.

TABLE 4: Summary Simple and Partial Correlations of reading comprehension test and the IE-ACCME test (D' AMICO, 2013) and Sociogram.

Sociogram Sociogram Sociogram Sociogram Affective Acceptance Scale Score Affective Rejection Functional Acceptance Functional Rejection r p-r r p-r r p-r r p-r CE-TOT .095 .101 -.200** -.187** .097 .98 -.139* -.129* .049 .047 -.059 -.067 .036 .036 -.026 -.032 CE scale (Beliefs CE-P About Emotions CE-F .003 .011 -.135* -.114* .061 .063 -.086 -.069 ) CE-C .080 .085 -.216** -.204** .062 .062 -.145* -.136 CE-G .105 .105 -.061 -.059 .061 .061 -.074 -.073 CME-TOT .132* .131* .056 .052 .003 .003 .028 .024 .074 .073 .166** .162* .043 .043 .160** .157** CME scale ( CME-P Meta Emotional CME-F .165** .162** -.029 -.039 .027 .027 -.047 -.055 Self-Concep). CME-C -.049 -.050 .023 .022 -.063 -.063 -.007 -.008 CME-G .081 .083 -.025 -.021 -.004 -.004 -.034 -.030 AE-TOT .113 .152** -.137* -.097* .110 .129* -.105 -.075 .114 .142* -.110 -.071 .116 .128* -.105 -.079 AE scale ( AE-g-P Emotionale AE-g-F .122* .134* -.141* -.120* .108 .111* -.095 -.079 Abilities ) AE-g-C .062 .088 -.096 -.051 .059 .068 -.065 -.030 AE-g-G .075 .095 -.087 -.051 .090 .097 -.085 -.060 Management G-FAI .046 .068 -.134* -.097 .019 .022 -.110 -.083 DO G-Fai/G .046 .067 -.129* -.092 .017 .019 -.109 -.083 Note : (*). *p <.05; **p <.01

4.1.2.3. EI differences in immigrant and autochthonous groups

A sequence of Anova has been carried out, in all evaluated variables, to analyze the difference between immigrant and autochthonous groups. Looking at final scores, autochthonous got higher scores than immigrant students in reading comprehension (F=6.91; p>=.01); in the same way, a sequence of Ancova has been carried out later, checking the effect of Italian language reading comprehension variable. In table 5, some differences are quoted between groups EI levels evaluated with IE-ACCME test.

In questionnaire of believes about emotions, through Anova analysis, it’s showed that autochthonous obtained relevant higher scores than immigrants. Those scores are pointed out in total scores (F=9.26; p= .00; p>= .01) the same as in emotional facilitation branches (F=5.35; p=.02; p>=.05) and emotional comprehension (F=10.53; p=.00; p>=.00).

Concerning to scores of Meta-Emotional Itself Concept questionnaire, no differences have been checked between immigrant and autochthonous groups.

About emotional ability test of IE-ACCME test, higher scores have been come out from autochthonous students in all evaluated variables. In Anova, it has been noticed that all variables are significant or get closer to statistical significance. Showing so that the difference among emotional abilities and between immigrants and autochthonous.

TABLE 5: EI levels (TEST IE-ACCME, D’AMICO, 2013) In Immigrants and Autochthonus

ANCOVA (CONTROLED FOR IMMIGRANTS AUTOCHTHONOUS ANOVA ITALIAN READING SCALE SCORE COMPREHENSION) M (DS) M (DS) F P F P CE-TOT 2.45 (.51) 2.68 (.53) 9.26 .00** 7.47 .01* CE scale (Beliefs CE-P 2.44 (.88) 2.50(.90) .21 .65 .41 .52 About Emotions CE-F 2.57 (1.05) 2.90 (.98) 5.35 .02* 3.21 .07 ) CE-C 2.60(.89) 2.99 (.80) 10.53 .00** 8.74 .00** CE-G 2.21 (.84) 2.34 (.88) 1.01 .07 .93 .34 CME-TOT 2.08 (.45) 2.11 (.50) .18 .68 .28 .60 CME scale ( CME-P 2.20 (.87) 2.21 (.86) .01 .93 .04 .84 Meta Emotional CME-F 2.04 (.80) 2.07 (.91) .07 .79 .24 .62 Self-Concep). CME-C 2.07 (.91) 2.03 (.82) .12 .73 .10 .75 CME-G 2.03 (1.00) 2.13 (1.00) .43 .51 .31 .58 AE-TOT 27.38 (7.12) 30.89 (6.59) 13.16 .00** 7.51 .01* AE-g-P 42.96 (10.87) 47.00 (9.44) 8.19 .00** 4.03 .05* AE-g-F 19.87 (4.78) 21.04 (4.89) 2.79 .10 1.29 .26 AE scale ( Emotionale AE-g-C 26.04 (14.56) 33.10(13.85) 12.18 .00** 6.91 .01* Abilities ) AE-g-G 24.99 (5.42) 26.71 (5.88) 4.27 .04 1.53 .22 G-FAI 22.53 (3.31) 23.54 (2.88) 5.49 .02* 1.94 .16 G-Fai/G 22.51 (2.99) 23.51 (2.88) 5.53 .02* 2.04 .15 Note : (*). *p <.05; **p <.01

Psychological well-being in immigrants and autochthonous

According to well-being data, evaluated with Ryff scale and its six dimensions showed in table 6, it has been noticed that autochthonous students obtained higher scores than immigrant ones.

TABLE 6: Well-Being Levels (PWBS; Ryff Zani, B., & Cigonani, E., 1999 ) in Immigrants and

Autochthonous

Immigrants Autochthonous Anova Ancova PWBS

M (DS) M (DS) F P F P

Positive Relationships 9.46 (2.70) 10.35 (2.56) 5.46 .02* 3.18 .08

Autonomy 9.29 (2.29) 9.87 (2.28) 3.18 .08 2.82 .09

Environmental Mastery 8.87 (2.13) 8.86 (2.41) .00 .97 .00 .95

Personal Growth 10.30 (2.26) 10.67 (2.44) 1.16 .28 .16 .69

Purpose Life 8.97 (2.61) 9.56 (2.54) 2.59 .11 1.55 .21

Self Acceptance 9.62 (2.56) 10.17 (2.62) 2.13 .15 2.31 .13

Note : (*). *p <.05; **p <.01

A detailed analysis has showed that an important difference about scores between immigrants and autochthonous in positive relationships dimension (F=5.46;p=.02 p>.05), which

93 does not remain when Ancova test is used. This score is indicative concerning that immigrants have difficulties in establishing relationships with peers, according to the definition of Ruini

(2003) for this dimension.

4.1.2.4. Difference between Immigrants and Autochthonous Groups in The Sociogram

The differences found between groups were shown in table 7; where scores are significant in the affective acceptance criterion (F=4.36; p=.04; p>.05). Thereby, evidence that autochthonous obtained score higher towards immigrants. It’s noticed in this way that, according to average scores of affective parameter of rejection, they are higher in immigrant students which indicate a disliking level, although it has no significant importance.

TABLE 7: Sociogram's Score in Immigrants and Autochthonous

Immigrants Autochthonous Anova Ancova Sociogram M (DS) M (DS) F P F P Affective 4.57 (3.06) 5.79 (4.30) 4.36 .04* 4.79 .03* Acceptance Affective 5.13 (5.44) 4.80 (6.56) .13 .72 .01 .92 Rejection Functional 4.83 (3.01) 5.73 (4.16) 5.56 .11 2.61 .11 Acceptance Functional 5.97 (5.56) 4.96 (6.50) 1.25 .27 .87 .35 Rejection Note : (*). *p <.05; **p <.01

A more detailed analysis of choice’s percentage carried out by immigrant and autochthonous students is described in table 8. It shows that autochthonous choose a number of autochthonous higher than immigrants, in the opposite way; immigrants choose a number of autochthonous higher than their peer immigrants.

TABLE 8: Percentage of Students Chosen for Each Variable in The Sociogram’s Affective Dimension

Autoc 1 Autoc 2 Autoc 3 Immi 1 Immi 2 Immi 3 90% 87% 84% 9% 12% 16% Autochthonous Sub Total 87% 12% Immigrants 69% 72% 64% 37% 22% 37% Sub Total 68% 32%

From all these results, another analysis has been made over the four groups in order to identify differences among the IE-ACCME test score; these four groups are composed of the following groups: in the first group (Autoc/Autoc)we find autochthonous who have chosen at least two autochthonous according to the three answer options of the sociogram; in the second group (Autoc/Immi) we can find the autochthonous who have chosen at least two immigrants according to the answer options of the sociogram; in the third group (Immi/Immi) we find the immigrants who at least have chosen two immigrants according to the answer options of the sociogram and in the fourth group (Immi/Autoc) we can find the immigrants who have chosen at least two autochthonous according to the answer options of the sociogram in table 9.

TABLE 9: Differences Between Groups of Autochthonous and Immigrants According to its Choices at Sociogram, Regard to The Scores on The IE-ACCME

Test.

Autoc/Autoc Autoc/Immi Immi/Immi Immi/Immi Anova Ancova SCALE SCORE M(DS) M(DS) M(DS) M(DS) F P F p a b CE-TOT 2.68 (.53) 2.69 (.42) 2.52 (.37) 2.40 (.59) 3.37 .02* 2.81 .04* CE scale CE-P 2.51 (.90) 2.26 (.88) 2.58 (.72) 2.34 (.97) .78 .51 .95 .42 (Beliefs 2.89 (1.00) 2.96 (.72) 2.72(.96) 2.47 (1.11) About CE-F 2.10 .10 1.54 .20 a b Emotions ) CE.C 2.99 (.81) 2.90 (.69) 2.54 (.91) 2.64 (.88) 3.63 .01* 2.99 .03* CE-G 2.31 (.88) 2.63 (.79) 2.30 (.94) 2.15 (.77) 1.09 .35 1.09 .35 CME-TOT 2.11 (.49) 2.12 (.55) 2.01 (.54) 2.12 (.38) .32 .81 .35 .78 CME scale ( CME-P 2.19 (.86) 2.33 (.86) 2.24 (1.00) 2.17 (.78) .14 .93 .13 .94 Meta 2.08 (.91) 2.00 (.89) 2.00 (1.00) 2.06 (.65) Emotional CME-F .09 .97 .19 .90 Self-Concep). CME-C 2.03 (.81) 2.00 (.94) 1.90 (.82) 2.18 (.95) .62 .60 .61 .61 CME-G 2.12 (.97) 2.16 (1.29) 1.94 (1.03) 2.09 (.98) .27 .85 .24 .87 a b c AE-TOT 31.16 (6.58) 27.51 (6.01 26.97 (6.36) 27.64 (7.65) 5.86 .00** 3.17 .02** AE scale ( AE-P 47.12 (9.23) 45.49 (12.14) 43.12 (10.14) 42.84 (11.46) 2.84 .04* 1.34 .26 Emotionale AE-F 21.08 (4.93) 20.57 (4.49) 19.56 (3.72) 20.07 (5.40) 1.03 .38 4.79 .69 Abilities ). a b c d AE-C 33.83 (13.66) 23.86 (13.25) 25.00 (14.36) 26.71 (14.84) 6.61 .00** 3.89 .00** AE-G 26.90 (5.97) 24.32 (4.00) 24.66 (6.14) 25.21 (4.97) 2.41 .07 .97 .41 a, b, c, d: Note: The values of such averages are statistically different from one another for each score *p <.05; **p <.01

With the obtained results applying the statistical test of Tukey it was observed meaningful statistical differences among the groups; in the questionnaire of about emotions it was observed differences in the total score (CE-Tot) and in the branch of comprehension of emotions (CE-C). Such significant differences observed in the total score were focused in group (Autoc/Autoc) and group (Immi/Immi); for the differences observed in the branch of emotion comprehension (CE-C) it was focused in group (Autoc/Autoc) and group

(Immi/Immi), in which autochthonous who chose autochthonous obtained higher score than immigrants who had chosen immigrants.

On the other hand, it wasn’t observed meaningful differences among the groups in the questionnaire about Meta Emotional itself of the test IE-ACCME.

Regarding the results obtained in the test of Emotional ability of the test IE-ACCME, it was found meaningful differences among the groups in the total score, and in the branch of emotion comprehension; such significant differences observed in the total score were focused in group (Autoc/Autoc), group (Immi/Immi) and group (Immi/Autoc). For the differences observed in the branch of emotion comprehension , it was found that it existed differences between group (Autoc/Autoc), and group (Autoc/Immi), group (Immi/Immi) and group (Immi/Autoc); these differences indicate that autochthonous who have chosen autochthonous have obtained higher score in emotion comprehension.

Carrying out a more detailed analysis about the differences among the immigrants and autochthonous, taking in care the choices received in the sociogram in the dimension of functional acceptance ant the scores of the IE-ACCME, in order to find out if the IE predicts the social acceptance; for performing this analysis, we have created 6 groups,

97 composed in the following way: group 1 (Autoc/Autoc), autochthonous chosen by autochthonous 76%; group 2 (Autoc/Immi), autochthonous chosen by immigrants 18%; group 3 (Immi/Immi), immigrants chosen by immigrants 33%; group 4 (Immi/Autoc), immigrants chosen by autochthonous 59%; group 5 (Autoc/-), non-chosen autochthonous

6%; group 6, non-chosen immigrants (Immi/-) 8%. Differences found are shown in table

10.

The results were obtained applying Tukey statistical test, with which it was observed meaningful statistical differences among the groups. In the questionnaire of beliefs about emotions, differences in the total score were found and in the branch of emotion comprehension these significant differences observed in the total score were pointed in the following way: those belonging to group (Autoc/Autoc) obtained higher score than the others in groups (Immi/Immi) and (Immi/Autoc). Those who belong to group (Immi/-) obtained higher score then the others in group (Immi/Immi); and those belonging the fourth group obtained higher score than those in group (Autoc/-).

Regarding the differences observed in the branch of emotion comprehension, those who belong to the first group obtained higher score than the individuals in group 3.

On the other hand, no significant differences were observed among the groups in the questionnaire of Meta Emotional Itself Concept of the test IE-ACCME.

TABLE 10: Differences Between Groups of Autochthonous and Immigrants According to Election Received On Sociogram, Relating to scores in the IE-ACCME Test.

ANCOVA Italian Reading Comprehensi (Autoc/autoc) (Autoc/Immi) (Immi/Immi) (Immi/Autoc) (Autoc/-) (Immi/-) Anova on M(DS) M(DS) M(DS) M(DS) M(DS) M(DS) F P F P CE- a b c d e 2.73 (.50) 2.63 (.58) 2.36 (.39) 2.40 (.54) 2.38 (.52) 3.10 (.16) 4.83 .00** TOT 5.40 .00** CE scale CE-P 2.51 (.89) 2.59(.96) 2.24(.86) 2.45(.89) 2.23(.83) 2.90(.65) .87 .50 .93 .46 (Beliefs a About CE-F 2.97 (.99) 2.76(.92) 2.81(.58) 2.27(1.21) 2.69(.85) 3.50(.35) 3.74 .00** 3.18 .00** Emotions ) a b CE.C 3.02 (.77) 3.01(.93) 2.45 (1.01) 2.62(.81) 2.54(.72) 3.30(.57) 3.76 .00** 3.34 .00** CE-G 2.41(.84) 2.15(.97) 1.93(.81) 2.28(.83) 2.08(.976) 2.70(.67) 1.91 .09 1.87 .09 CME- 2.09(.50) 2.17(.52) 1.93(.47) 2.15(.42) 2.21(.43) 2.25(.41) .93 .46 CME scale ( TOT .99 .43 Meta CME-P 2.17(85) 2.34(.83) 2.14(.98) 2.18(.80) 2.31(1.07) 2.60(.96) .48 .79 .42 .83 Emotional CME-F 2.05(.90) 2.26(.83) 1.83(.90) 2.09(.73) 1.92(1.22) 2.30(.76) .79 .56 .76 .58 Self- Concep). CME-C 1.99(.78) 2.18(.90) 1.81(.77) 2.24(1.02) 2.04(.92) 2.10(.55) 1.08 .37 1.07 .38 CME-G 2.13(.97) 1.91(1.00) 1.95(1.02) 2.12(.99) 2.58(1.08) 2.00(1.32) .97 .44 .95 .45 AE- a b c 31.50 (6.58) 29.95(6.45) 27.08 (6.77) 27.72 (7.25) 26.86(6.00) 25.43(7.18) 2.14 .06 TOT 4.33 .00** AE scale ( AE-P 47.51(9.25) 47.02 (8.50) 42.60(11.86) 43.54(10.75) 40.64(12.58) 42.27(8.13) 2.73 .02* 1.53 .18 Emotionale AE-F 21.31(5.07) 19.91(4.26) 19.47(3.58) 20.37(5.09) 21.27(4.45) 16.98(5.65) 1.58 .17 .94 .45 Abilities ). a b AE-C 34.36 (13.26) 31.24(15.38) 25.35(14.38) 26.31 (14.59) 24.86(13.93) 24.64(15.57) 4.05 .00** 2.06 .07 AE-G 27.09(6.08) 26.59(5.15) 25.90(5.92) 24.65(5.32) 23.48(4.40) 22.41(2.14) 2.35 .04* 1.22 .30 a, b, c, d, e: Note: The values of such averages are statistically different from one another for each score *p <.05; **p <.01.

Considered of the differences observed among the groups in the Emotion Ability Test of the test IE-ACCME, significant differences were found among the groups in the total score and in the branch of emotion comprehension, the differences observed in the total score, show that those who belong to group (Autoc/Autoc) obtained higher score than those in groups

(Immi/Immi) and (Immi/autoc). This same pattern is held in the branch of emotion comprehension in the group (Autoc/Autoc), who obtained higher score than those in the group

(Immi/autoc).

4.1.3. Discussion and Conclusions:

About the goals set in this research, data have proved the importance of emotional intelligence in several aspects of psychological well-being and social acceptance.

The results show a wide range of positive correlations between emotional intelligence and psychological well-being, as shown in table number 3. The results of the research show that adolescent and preadolescents who have high levels on IE also obtained high score on the dimensions of positive relationships, personal growing-up, autonomy and self-acceptance

The literature related to psychological well-being and its relation to EI is really poor.

Some researchers have stated that the feature of EI seems to be a good indicator of psychological well-being. In opposition, EI measured with ability instruments shows few significant relations to psychological well-being (Dimitrijević & Marjanović; 2011).

In this sense, the results of this research move in the opposite direction regarding to what

Dimitrijević and Marjanović affirm, considering that more significant correlations were found as in IE-ACCME test as in its self-report questionnaire.

100

In the results obtained in the group differences between immigrants and autochthonous, it was observed that autochthonous obtained higher score in the great majority of the assessed variables. In particular, it was observed in the groups statistically significant differences in the score of the test IE-ACCME, in the emotion belief and emotional ability sub tests.

The low score obtained by the immigrants in the believes about emotion and emotional ability tests can be explained through the relation of their ethnic and cultural believes they belong to. However, it´s detected that abilities in emotional intelligence are of a special relevance for these individuals, in this case the immigrants, to make use of them when they face the tensions and negative experiences proper of the hosting culture, that are usually high when the origin culture and the values and believes associated to it, are much different from them proper of the immigration country. Therefore, the EI accomplishes an important role as a protectionist factor (Schmitz, 2012), even though the results of the actual research weren´t analyzed from the cultural perspective, it opens new possibilities to keep on looking into in future investigations.

Regarding the psychological well-being (PWBS) a low score obtained by the immigrants in the dimension of positive relationships shows that immigrants tend to have more difficulty to establish relation with their equals, showing therefore behaviors of isolation, frustration and lack of compromise to keep bonds with others; according to the definition about low score in this dimension (Ruini et al, 2003). If we observe these results regarding the ones obtained in the sociogram, it’s demonstrated that immigrants are likely to choose autochthonous with the aim of establishing more significant relationships and get rid of cultural segregation.

The literature suggests that criteria to judge positive adaptation of young person’s regarding the relationships with the immigrant’s colleagues vary depending on if we take the

101 point of view of the development or the acculturation. From the development point of view, the being accepted by their equals and classmates is an important and accurate index as predictor of future of the adaptation and psychological well-being (Motti-Stefanidi, et al.,

2006). From the acculturation point of view, based on the supposition that the learning and support of both cultures is useful for a better adaptation and psychological well-being (Berry et al., 2011), having friends and being accepted by both pair’s immigrants and autochthonous is a sign of positive adaptation. Summarizing, immigrants adolescent and preadolescent, as all adolescent’s have the need of being accepted and loved by their mates, independently of the ethnic origin of these, but in the same way, they have to relate satisfactorily to equals or groups intra and interethnic.

Considering obtained results through the analysis carried out between received choices’ sociogram in affective dimension and IE-ACCME test, it has been observed that those immigrants who have been chosen by autochthonous have higher level of EI than immigrants who chose immigrants. Moreover, observing in the same way they received choices by immigrants, those who were chosen by autochthonous got higher scores in EI than their immigrant peers chosen by immigrants. Concerning obtained results through the analysis related to received choices in affective dimension sociogram and the differences find out in the groups connected to IE-ACCME test, it has been noticed in particular that as autochthonous as immigrants who were not chosen obtained lower scores in EI. In this case, literature suggest that people with strong emotional abilities can use it to get better relationships with their peers (Lopez, Brakett, Nezlek, Schütz, Sellin and Salovey; 2004).

Moreover, other researches about interpersonal relationships and EI report gender differences, how men with low EI get low-quality relationships with their peers which suggests that for people with low EI could be hard to establish significant social relationships: these two

102 researches just mentioned have been carried out with young people aged from 17 to 20.

(Brackett, Mayer and Warner; 2003). Those results are suggestive but not explicative about how EI is predictive of social acceptance and interpersonal relationships.

Finally, obtained results allow to emphasize the importance of EI for psychological adjustment of second generation immigrant students. In fact, it is plausible the hypothesis that immigrant students can take advantage of training courses aimed at improving the emotional intelligence abilities that could lead them to be accepted and understood by their equals.

103

4.2. Study 2 enhancing emotional intelligence in immigrant adolescents to promote their inclusion

4.2.1. Introduction and goals

As just shown, in the last years the schools of all over the world are going to change their curricular programs with the aim to give the students an education about academic competences and a development of socio-emotional competences in order to prevent problems and develop solutions for a good psychological adjustment of their students.

The researches described on chapter 1 showed how SEL programs contribute to decrease anxiety level, depression and negative attitudes towards the school (Brackett & Katulak,

2007) as well they have a positive impact on the reduction of youth aggressiveness, so that an improvement of organizational environment within school class, expressed by the students through pro-social behavior, identifying quality interpersonal relationships between students and teachers. Considering the results of the researches previously described and the ones obtained in the first, this second research has the main purpose of investigating if emotional intelligence training for second-generation immigrant pre-adolescents contributes to improve the individual well-being and social acceptance.

4.2.1.2. Method

4.2.1.3. Participants

Two classes of ‘Turrisi Colonna’ school in Palermo (Italy) took part to this research for a total amount of 38 students, 17 immigrants and 21 autochthonous, 12-15 aged, (M: 12,87; Ds:

1,09) while experimental and control group each one consisted of 19 students, that were part of the first study

104

4.2.1.4. Research design

The investigation design created to evaluate the laboratory effects on EI, about EI variables, on psychological well-being and social acceptance of immigrant adolescents. A pre- test/post-test quasi-experimental design was used with an experimental and control group in order to evaluate the efficacy of laboratory on EI, based on Ability model. The reference evaluation’s information was gathered on May, 2013. The students of experimental group were always present at EI laboratory on April and May, 2014. After its complete ending, the evaluation step was started.

4.2.1.5. Material an procedures

4.2.1.5.1. Emotional intelligence

In order to evaluate the emotional intelligence IE-ACCME test -Intelligenza Emotiva:

Abilità, Credenze e Concetto di sé Meta-Emotivo, D’Amico; 2013 – (Emotional Intelligence:

Ability, Believes and Meta-Emotional Self-Concept) was used. It allows to measure the four branches of emotional intelligence described on Mayer and Salovey’s model (1997): perception, use, understanding and management of emotions through different measurement methods. This test is indicate for 10-18 aged subjects, consisting of two questionnaires and one emotional ability test which explore the eight dimensions of emotions described on

Mayer and Salovey’s model (1997).

4.2.1.5.2. Psychological Well-Being Scale

(PWBS): (in Zani, B ., & Cigonani, E., 1999); this scale analyzes individual well-being, using a self-report questionnaire which investigates the six dimensions of psychological well-being suggested in Carol Ryff’s model (1989). It stated that well-being is showed as multi-

105 dimensional and dynamic process, emphasizing the positive working mediated by the development of abilities and personal growing (Diaz et al; 2006) which includes various and multiple aspects described here in a row: 1) Positive relationship with others; 2) Sense autonomy;. 3) Environment control; 4) Personal grow; 5) Life goal; 6) Self-acceptance.

This research has chosen the Italian version with 18 questions, 3 for each dimension.

Subject has to express the compliance level with the sentence reported on the scale. The scores of the answers are given according to a 5 point Likert scale: 1 point totally agree, 5 points totally disagree. Questions negative-expressed are counted in opposite way so that final result represents the self-evaluation of the subject for this scale. Total score for each scale is evaluated adding “totally agree” degree of each question.

4.2.1.5.3. Moreno’s sociogram:

In order to investigate social relationships existing among adolescents and preadolescents integrated in the same school class, the method based on Moreno’s sociogram test

(Hoffman; 2001) has been used. As its own name says, it is a sociometric test which allows to diagram social relationships of group’s integrated. Sociogram tends to evaluate relationships or friendly and affective bounds which converge or diverge regarding members of each class, accounting this test as a useful device to identify relationships among immigrants and autochthonous. The method used to gather data takes account of processing of four questions which fit to two criteria: affective, related to liking/disliking and functional, connected to subject’s abilities. Two questions concern affective parameter: one of those expressed in a positive way (affective acceptance), other in negative (affective rejection); this process is repeated for functional parameter with a question expressed in a positive way (functional acceptance) and other in a negative way (functional rejection). There are three answer options

106 for each question where each student can choose three classmates giving them an order of priority (1 = first chosen; 2 = second chosen; 3 = third chosen). The score is obtained adding the number of received choices for each question in a two way table.

4.2.1.5.4. Training

The training program was carried out through the methodology and the activities within

Intemo program. Such program was translated and adapted to Italian language for laboratory effects (Ruiz-Aranda, Fernández-Berrocal, Cabello & Salguero; 2008) and through the activities of ‘Sviluppare l’intelligenza emotiva’ software (‘Developing emotional intelligence’). Both programs are based on EI model by Mayer and Salovey (1997): perception, facilitation, understanding and adjustment of emotions. Emotional Intelligence laboratory had 12 sessions, each one lasting one hour, two meetings every week for two months. This program was carried out as a part of regular class and implemented by myself.

Then, the programmatic structure of this emotional intelligence laboratory could be observed.

The structure consider that for each session there is a short explanation about the skill which is going to analyze, then there is a step of working on the activities set for class session and for the one which should be realized at home by students and their family in order to integrate them in learning process. At the end of each session there is a back-supply moment so that students could may express what they felt during their work and a processing of ideas summary expressed during each session.

Activities of Emotional Intelligence Laboratory

Table 11: Activities of IE Laboratory

Previous step: introduction

Goals Issues

107

Session 0 Introducing participants the EI Laboratory program EI program introduction Creating an appropriate environment to implement the Creation of working groups program Step 1: Emotional perception and expression

Session 1 Learning to express emotions in an appropriate way. Activity: what does your body say? Developing the ability to recognize the emotions of other Activity: what do you feel? people through face expression and body language. Proposal for home activity Learning to recognize the emotions of other people through (Emotional Bazar ) pictures which represent a social interaction. Session 2 Learning to understand and identify which emotions recall Review of home activity (Opening us some things and sounds. emotional Bazar) Learning to express different emotions through the body. Activity: wax museum Expressing emotions through art expression. Activity: an emotional artist

Proposal for home activity (They feel)

Session 3 Reinforcing the contents related to perception, like Review of home activity (They recognizing and expressing emotions. feel) Revision of emotional perception and expression using some exercises of ‘Sviluppare l’intelligenza emotiva’ software. Step 2: Emotional facilitation

Session 4 Knowing the influence of emotions, in this case supported by music, in our mind and the memories we get back. Activity: each emotion with its Being aware of connections, in long-term situations, we situation make between our experiences and the emotions we feel. Proposal for home activity Knowing the basic role which emotions play in order to (emotional bearings) accomplish some tasks, that is their basic functions. Learning to recognize how emotions influence to the attention we pay to what happens around us Noticing that our attention is usually consistent with our mood so that we tend to focus our attention to positive aspects of reality when feel good and vice versa.

Session 5 Understanding emotions just not only as an obstacle for Review of home activity thought and action but also as facilitators we can use daily (analyzing emotional bearings) if we know how they work. Home activity (A bittersweet Knowing how emotions influence the way we understand moment) and judge things or facts and the decision making we accomplish. Learning to recognize sensations (visual, auditive, olfactory, tactile and gustatory) we link to different situations. Identifying how sensations cause emotions.

Session 6 Reinforcing the use of emotions, identifying how these are Review of home activity (a useful in real life for creating and keeping positive and bittersweet moment) negative emotional condition. Revision of facilitation step and use of emotions through the exercises of ‘Sviluppare l’intelligenza emotiva’ software

108

Step 3: Emotional understanding

Session Learning to link emotional conditions to different tags. Activity: emotional party 7 Increasing and enhancing emotional language. Proposal for home activity (find out a situation for each emotion)

Session 8 Developing emotional knowledge Review of home activity (finding Finding out what is the function of emotions and out a solution for each emotion) understanding that every emotions is important and Activity: journey on a hot-air necessary. balloon Knowing the connection between thoughts and emotions Activity: I think therefore I feel that is like emotional conditions which usually are Proposal for home activity (in the associated with some kind of thinking or evaluating a mind of other people) situation. Thinking about the mix of emotions because different emotions can appear together along the time even if they have a different affective value.

Session Reinforcing the emotional vocabulary, the comprehension Review of home activity (from an 9 of emotions and its significance. As well understanding emotion to a new one) that the combination of basic emotions can cause complex Revision of emotional emotions and a change of an emotional state for a new one. understanding step through the exercises of ‘Sviluppare l’intelligenza emotiva’ software

Step 4: Emotional adjustment

Session 10 Managing its and their own emotions Activity: What can we do when we Pushing participants to self-reflection about their behavior feel...? and thought facing some situations. Proposal for home activity (My Knowing strategies which other people make while they positive diary) are going to adjust their emotional world, that is identifying possible strategies in order to manage/adjust each mood and each behavior throughout some situations.

Session 11 Developing the interpersonal emotional adjustment. Review of home activity Making participants aware of the skills everyone has in (commenting my positive diary) order to influence other people emotionally through our Activity: What does it make me verbal and non-verbal behavior. feel? Learning that their own emotional world’s management Activity: Do you know your body? and other people’s one allows to develop a more complete and satisfying social relationships. Proposal for home activity (What do they make you feel?)

Session Learning to adjust real emotions and moods of other Review of home activity (What do 12 people through supposed daily situations and adopting they make you feel?) appropriate strategies related to personal and interpersonal situations which happen. Revision of emotional management Making participants aware of the importance to manage step through the exercises of our emotions and of the effects on their own environment ‘Sviluppare l‘intelligenza emotiva’ and on themselves. software

109

4.2.2 Data analysis The data were analyzed through SPSS 19 statistical software, carrying out a variance analysis (ANOVA) in order to evaluate some statistically significant differences between experimental and control group in different scales of IE-ACCME test, PWBS scale and sociogram, before and after training. So it allows a comparison among variable performances evaluated through IE-ACCME test and its questionnaires of believes about emotions, meta- emotional self-concept, ability test (perception, facilitation, understanding and management of emotions), psychological well-being scale (positive relationships, autonomy, environmental control, personal growth and self-acceptance) and sociogram on its affective and functional aspects, before and after training.

4.2.2.1. Results:

4.2.2.2. IE differences between experimental and control group

The results, obtained by ANOVA, between experimental and control group did not show statistically significant differences in the questionnaire about emotions and meta-emotional self-questionnaire, considering them by the analysis results of time interaction for each group table12.)

110

Table 12: EI Levels (EI-ACCME Test, D'Amico, 2013) Experimental And Control Group.

ANCOVA Group*Time Time Italian Reading T1 T2 Group Comprehension Variabile MD(DS) MD(DS) F p F P F p F p Experimental 2.40 (.40) 2.64 (.45) CE-TOT .51 .48 4.60* .04* .00 .96 .37 .55 Control 2.47 (.475 2.59 (.63) Experimental 2.66 (.97) 3.16(.93) CE scale CE-P 2.05 .16 1.34 .25 1.47 .23 1.70 .20 Control 2.68 (.67) 2.63(.879) (Beliefs Experimental 2.11 (.89) 2.05 (.94) About CE-F .04 .84 .00 .95 .67 .42 .06 .80 Control 2.24 (.92) 2.26(.73) Emotions Experimental 2.92 (.77) 3.13 (.72) ) CE-C 1.12 .30 6.11* .02* .21 .65 .92 .34 Control 2.66 (1.01) 3.18 (.85) Experimental 1.92 (.75) 2.21 (.84) CE-G .84 .36 .59 .45 1.15 .29 .69 .41 Control 2.29 (.69) 2.26 (.87) CME- Experimental 2.11 (.38) 2.46 (.51) .94 .34 8.08 .01** .02 .90 .88 .35 TOT Control 2.18 (.54) 2.35 (.52) CME Experimental 2.237 (.90) 2.84 (.91) CME-P 1.24 .27 6.47 .02* .01 .92 1.24 .27 scale ( Control 2.45 (1.05) 2.68 (.785) Meta Experimental 1.66 (.85) 2.34 (.96) CME-F 2.39 .13 4.45 .04* .05 .82 2.36 .13 Emotiona Control 2.00 (.833) 2.11 (1.02) l Self- Experimental 2.39 (1.02) 2.37 (.78) CME-C .21 .65 .11 .75 .31 .58 .11 .74 Concep). Control 2.18 (.96) 2.34 (.83) Experimental 2.19 (1.04) 2.29 (1.07) CME-G .01 .92 .39 .53 .01 .90 .06 .81 Control 2.10 (.99) 2.29 (.99) Experimental 27.01(5.74) 31.6 (6.05) AE-TOT 29.25 .00** 23.78 .00** .21 .65 27.78 .00** Control 30.25 (4.96) 30.1 (6.02) Experimental 47.28(9.15) 47.43(7.58) AE scale AE-P .76 .39 .55 .46 .10 .75 1.12 .30 Control 47.57 (7.20) 45.71(7.01) ( Experimental 18.43 (5.75) 21.31(4.66) Emotiona AE-F 4.41 .04* .72 .40 2.02 .16 4.30 .05* Control 22.08(3.26) 20.86 (4.32) le Experimental 23.53(1.35) 35.39(13.83) Abilities ) AE-C 6.00 .02* 14,49 .00** .22 .64 5.33 .03* Control 30.05 (15.74) 32.63 (15.74) Experimental 24.23 (3.80) 25.72 (4.39) AE-G 1.05 .31 .41 .53 .19 .67 1.08 .31 Control 24.63 (4.79) 24.28 (5.35 Experimental 23.52 (1.46) 22.19 (2.43) AE-Gfai .93 .34 1.69 .20 .09 .77 .78 .38 Manage Control 22.78 (3.86) 22.59 (1.42) ment Do Experimental 23.50 (1.38) 22.20 (2.40) Ae-GFAI .57 .45 2.32 .14 .30 .58 .46 .50 Control 22.75 (3.85) 22.31 (1.56) Note: *p <.05; **p <.01

111

Using the reading comprehension test as Ancova, it has not been observed any significant difference in the questionnaire about believes of emotions and the meta-emotional self- concept related to post-training test.

Observing on details, the results which were obtained through Anova analysis, in particular those related to inter-subject conflict test (Time), show that the statistically significant differences stay only on total ability variables “AE-TOT” (F=23.78; p=.00; p>

.01)., and on emotional comprehension (F=14.49; p=.00; p> .01), On the other hand, concerning the results obtained by Ancova through the reading test as control measurement, it has been observed that statistically significant differences keep on total ability (F=27.78; p=.00; p> .01) facilitation (F=4.30; p=.05; p> .05) and emotional comprehension (F=5.33; p=.03; p> .05) (See table 12)..

Concerning the emotional ability test, there are some statistically significant differences between those groups (experimental and control) when we observe the analysis results of time interaction for analysis Anova group. In particular, this score is noted through the average comparison. Higher scores come up in experimental group on total ability variables “AE-

TOT” (F=29.25; p=.00; p> .01), facilitation “AE-F” (F=4.41; p=.04; p> .05) and comprehension “AE-C” (F= 6.00; p= .02; p> .05). (See table 12).

In the following table the variables ‘facilitation’ (use and sensation) and ‘comprehension’

(transformation and mix) are analyzed in a more detailed way, in order to investigate what sub-scales show statistically significant differences. According to score analysis described on the table concerning the obtained scores carrying out Anova analysis, it has been noted that the experimental group has a statistically significant increase on sensation variable “AE-C

Sensazioni” (F=4.344; p= .04; p> .05) than control group. It means that experimental group

112 improved its emotional awareness and performance, so that achieving an emotional coherence with the information of external world received through senses (see table 13).

In the same way, concerning the scores obtained on the sub-scale of emotional comprehension (Mix), the students belonging to experimental group obtained statistically significant scores “AE-C- Mix”, (F=3.99; p= .05; p> .05) than control group students which means that experimental group have an higher perception of recognizing complex emotional states. Moreover, it has been observed that inter-subject analysis, concerning time, keep important differences only on emotional comprehension sub-scale (Mix) (F=14.14; p= .00; p>

.01). On the other hand, analyzing the four sub-scales and getting as control measurement the reading comprehension of Italian language, it has been observed that a significant difference is kept on sensation variable (F=4.04; p= .05; p> .05) (see table 13) .

According to the table corresponding to well-being test (PWBS, Ruini, 2003), in experimental and control group there are significant differences in the variables purpose of life (F=11.26; p= .00; p> .05) and personal growth (F=5.42; p=.03; p> .05) However, the analysis carried out had not any important differences using as control measurement a reading test of Italian language (see table 14)

113

Table 13: IE Levels Sub-Scales Facilitation and Emotional Comprehension (IE-ACCME Test, D'Amico, 2013) Experimental And

Control Group.

ANCOVA Group*Time Italian Reading T1 T2 Time Group Comprehension F P F P F P F P Variabile MD(DS) MD(DS) Experime 24.82(8.92) 25.86 (9.33) ntal AE-F-Use .68 .41 .09 .76 .55 .46 .80 .38 Control 28.22 (10.58) 25.98 (9.35)

Experime 16.30 (6.78) 19.80(4.81) AE-F- ntal 4.34 .04* 1.55 .221 1.65 .21 4.04 .05* Feelings Emotion Control 20.03 (3.73) 19.15(3.65) al Experime Ability 27.35 (6.69) 28.28 (5.23) AE-C- ntal test Transformat .92 .34 .03 .87 .46 .50 1.51 .23 ion Control 29.48(5.52) 28.18 (5.68)

Experime 21.32 (15.14) 29.13(20.64) ntal AE-C-Mix 3.99 .05* 14,14 .00** .11 .75 3.43 .07 Control 38.41 (20.87) 34.37 (23.10)

114

Table 14: Well-Being Levels (Pwbs: in Zani, B. & Cigonani, E., 1999) In Experimental And Control Group

ANCOVA T1 T2 Group*Time Italian Reading Time Group Comprehension Scale Group MD(DS) MD(DS) F p F p F p F p

Experimental 56.63 (7.38) 57.63 (57.75) PWBS TOTAL .01 .94 .34 .56 2.35 .13 .00 .99 Controlo 59.32 (8.95) 60.11 (5.11)

9.63 (2.03) 9.21 (1.58) POSITIVE Experimental 1.55 .22 .17 .68 .42 .52 2.07 .16 RELATIONSHIPS Control 9.23 (3.02) 10.16 (1.74)

Experimental 8.84 (1.95) 9.21 (2.10) AUTONOMY 2.17 .15 .33 .57 2.88 .10 2.34 .14 Control 10.32 (2.19) 9.47 (1.84)

9.58 (2.14) 8.53 (2.55) ENVIRONMENTAL Experimental .26 .61 3.12 .09 .00 .96 .43 .52 MASTERY Control 9.32 (2.69) 8.74 (1.73

9.79 (2.23) 9.58 (1.68) PERSONAL Experimental .50 .49 1.37 .25 5.42 .03* .40 .53 GROWTH Control 11.32 (2.65) 10.47 (1.78)

Experimental 9.74 (2.10) 10.84 (2.32) PURPOSE LIFE 1.88 .18 11.26 .00** 1.97 .17 1.87 .18 Control 8.26 (2.49) 10.89 (2.35) Experimental 9.05 (2.97) 10.26 (2.62) SELF ACCEPTANCE 1.90 .18 .44 .51 1.93 .17 1.99 .16 Control 10.79 (2.70) 10.37 (2.65)

115

Table 15: Sociogram scores in experimental group with immigrants and autochthonous.

ANCOVA Group*Time Italian Reading Time Group Comprehension T1 T2 F P F P F P F P Scale Group MD(DS) MD(DS) AUTOCHTHONOU Affective 7,09 (6,44) 4,91 (3,18) S 5.73 .03* .69 .42 .06 .82 6.17 .02* Acceptance IMMIGRANT´S 3,38 (2,92) 7,88 (4,29) AUTOCHTHONOU Affective 5,64(4,27) 7,64 (6,09) S 1.27 .28 .00 .97 1.96 .18 1.48 .24 Rejection IMMIGRANT´S 5,63 (4,96) 3,75 (2,55) AUTOCHTHONOU Functional 6,82 (4,75) 5,82 (3,52) S 2.63 .12 .62 .44 1.42 .25 2.14 .16 Acceptance IMMIGRANT´S 3,38 (1,77) 6,25 (3,88) AUTOCHTHONOU Functional 5,64(5,35) 6,27 (5,44) Rejection S .19 .67 .01 .95 .00 .95 .29 .60 IMMIGRANT´S 6,50 (6,35) 5,63 (3,66)

116

In the analysis carried out and related to sociogram scores concerning control and experimental group, there were any statistically significant differences neither before nor after treatment.

Actually carrying out the ANOVA analysis of sociogram variables about the differences within the experimental group between immigrants and autochthonous table 15, it has been observed that autochthonous obtained higher scores in affective acceptance than immigrants before treatment, whereas after it there was a change in favor of immigrants (F=5.73; p= .03 p>

.05) and a keeping of statistically significant differences in functional acceptance variable, when the reading comprehension test as control measurement is used as Ancova (F=6.17; p=.02; p>

.05).

According to the percentage analysis of received choices in affective acceptance of the sociogram Table 16, there is in the post-test an increase of autochthonous who choose immigrants (+12%) and immigrants who choose autochthonous (+38,3%).

Table 16: received choice percentages in sociogram´s affective-acceptance dimension in experimental group.

T1 T2

autoc autoc autoc immi immi autoc autoc autoc immi immi immi 1 2 3 1 immi 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 AUTOCHTHO 63% 54% 90% 36% 45% 9% 63% 45% 63% 36% 54% 36% NOUS

69% 30% 57% 42% IMMIGRANT´ 87% 62% 62% 12% 37% 38% 63% 12% 25% 37% 87% 75% S

70% 28% 33% 66%

117

4.2.3. Discussions and Conclusions

The results obtained in this research show that the emotional intelligence training improves two dimensions of EI: facilitation (emotions as thought facilitators) and comprehension of emotions. In the same way, it has been noticed improvements by students concerning ‘sensation’ variable which contributes to a higher awareness and coherence between information and sensations which come from outside. Once more, after treatment, the students got a higher identification of complex emotional states, due to association and enrichment of emotional language. On the other hand, such obtained information helped to improve self-reflection about mixed emotions, acquiring through it higher empathic skills.

According to the literature of this area (Brackett and others, 2011; Ruiz Aranda et al, 2012), the enrichment of emotional vocabulary is an instrument through which children identify, evaluate and understand inter and intrapersonal thoughts, feelings and behaviors, allowing and improving strategies to handle properly their emotions in life time.

About the results obtained in psychological well-being scale there were not any significant differences, therefore it means that one of the main factors to validate the treatment is its time of duration and this affirmation is supported also by literature of that area (Ruiz Aranda et al, 2012;

Payton JW and others, 2010).

The literature in this field shows that this program treatment improves the inter and intrapersonal relationships (Diekstra, 2007) so such results found through sociogram indicate that second-generation immigrants showed a higher acceptance by autochthonous and by the other immigrants after treatment.

118

4.2.3.1. Limitations

The greatest limitation of this research concerned the short time available to implement the laboratory. One more limitation identified during the activities development was the low interest and participation of teachers.

About future researches, it’s necessary to carry out more interest about longitudinal researches which allow to analyze deeply the efficiency impact and the efficacy of SEL programs in school classes, because of the advantages, according to literature, can be only observed after two years of treatment (Ruiz Aranda et al., 2012; Payton JW, et al., 2010).

It would be interesting to investigate, in future researches with a representative sample of people, the event of second generation in school classes taking account of emotional intelligence levels and the relations with other variables such as rejection, discrimination and psychological adjustment (mental health).

119

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

The results obtained in this research allow to conclude that there are some kind of positive correlations among emotional intelligence, psychological well-being and social acceptance; since adolescents who have high levels of emotional intelligence obtained similarly high scores in most of the variables evaluated with the scale of psychological well-being by Ryff. Investigations have indicated that IE is not only a protective factor of emotional negative states, but it is also directly related to positive emotions and psychological well-being (Brackett & Mayer, 2003; Brackett et al, 2006). It is also supposed that emotional intelligence is a protective key-factor (Schmitz et al,

2012) to adaptation, considering the specific case of second-generation immigrants, it is recognized that the skills owned by emotionally intelligent people can use them when they face their situations of tension and negative experiences related to migration.

Regarding relationships and social acceptance, the results indicate that immigrants with high levels of emotional intelligence have more meaningful relationships with their autochthonous peers. Studies about interpersonal relationships found links between high scores on the component of MSCEIT’s emotional management and more positive relationships in their social interactions, a greater support perception from parents and few negative interactions with closest friends (Lopes, Salovey & Straus 2003). In the same way Lopes et al found that students with more IE showed an higher interpersonal and pro-social sensitivity and, at the same time, they were the best evaluated by their peers in some areas such as interpersonal sensitivity, acceptance and mutual friendship (Lopes et al., 2005).

The results obtained with the training, with regard to interpersonal relationships, indicate that second-generation immigrants had a greater social acceptance by peers, which suggests that

120 emotional intelligence training promotes improved relations, as indicated by the literature of this sector (Diesktra, 2007).

In the same order, this study has shown that emotional intelligence can be learnt, as shown by Mayer and Salovey (2001). The training of short duration made possible an increase in the following branches of emotional intelligence: emotions as facilitators of thinking and understanding of emotions. These two states have great importance, first because this skill allows the use of emotions to solve problems and how we process information in order to support other cognitive processes; the second ability facilitates reflection about the emotional information, ability to label emotions and to understand complex emotions. Taking into account what has been described before, these skills increased by immigrant students contribute to a better social adjustment, improved interpersonal relationships and mediate effectively the problems concerning integration. In the same way, the results obtained with training and their connection with interpersonal relationships showed an increase of these between immigrants and autochthonous. So the literature indicates that in order to have a proper process of social integration in adolescents, couples and friends play a fundamental role for a proper healthy, emotional, psychological, social and academic adjustment (Lasso and Soto, 2005).

121

REFERENCES:

Allardt, E. (1996). Tener, amar, ser: una alternativa al modelo sueco de investigación sobre el

bienestar. En M. Nussbaum y A. Sen (comps.), La calidad de vida (pp. 126-134). México:

F.C.E.

Allison, D. B,. Alfonso, V.C & Dunn, G. M. (1991). The Extended Satisfaction With Life Scale.

The Behavior therapist, 5, 14-16.

Allport, G. W. (1961). Pattern and growth in personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart

Algan, Y., Dustmann, C., Glitz, A., Manning, A. (2010). The Economic Situation of First- and

Second-generation Immigrants in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. In:

Economic Journal, Vol. 120, No. 542.

Austin, E., Saklofske, D.H., Huang, S.H.S., & McKenney, D. (2004). Measurement of Trait

Emotional Intelligence: Testing and Cross-Validating a Modified Version of Schutte et

al.’s (1998) Measure. Personality and Individual Differences, Vol.36, No.3, (February

2004), pp. 555-562.

Austin, E. J. (2005). Emotional intelligence and emotional information processing. Personality

and Individual Differences, 39, 403–414.

Bacallao, M. L. & Smokowski, P.R. (2007). The costs of getting ahead: Mexican family system

changes after immigration. Family Relations, 56, 52-66.

Bagley, C (1972) “Deviant Behavior in Inglish and West Indian Schoolchildren” Research in

Education 8: 47-55.

122

Barchard, K. (2003). Does emotional intelligence assist in the prediction of academic success?

Educational and Psychological Measurement, 63, 840–858.

Bar-On, R. (1997). The Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i): A test of emotional intelligence.

Toronto, Canada: Multi-Health Systems, Inc.

Bar -On, R. (2005). Emotional intelligence and subjective wellbeing. Manuscript submitted for

publication.

Bauman, Z. (1999). La società dell’incertezza. Bologna: Il Mulino.

Berkman L. F. (1995). The role of social relations in health promotion. Psychosomatic Medicine,

57, 245-254.

Bisquerra, R. (2000). Educación emocional y bienestar. Barcelona: Praxis

Benson, P. L. (2006). All kids are our kids: What communities must do to raise caring and

responsible children and adolescents, 2nd edn. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Berry, J.W. (1997). Immigration, Acculturation and Adaptation. In: Applied Psychology: An

International Review, Number 46.

Binet, A. (1905). Nouvelles recherchés sur la mesure du niveau intelletuel chez les enfants

d’école. Année Psichologiche, 27, 10-201.

Blank, R. M., Dabady, M., & Citro, C. F. (Eds.). (2004). Measuring racial discrimination.

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Brackett, M.A., Rivers, S.E., Shiffman, S., Lerner, N., & Salovey, P. (2006). Relating emotional

abilities to social functioning: A comparison of self-report and performance measures of

emotional intelligence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91 (4), 780- 795.

123

Brackett, M.A., Warner, R.M., & Bosco, J. (2005). Emotional intelligence and relationship

quality among couples. Personal Relationships, 12,197-212.

Brackett, M.A., Elbertson, N., Alster, B., Kremenitzer, J. P., & Caruso, D. (2011). Emotionally

literate teaching. In M.A. Brackett & J. P. Kremenitzer with M. Maurer, M. Carpenter, S.

E. Rivers, & N. Elbertson (Eds.), Creating emotionally literate classrooms: An

introduction to The RULER Approach to social and emotional learning. Port Chester,

New York: National Professional Resources.

Brackett, M.A., Reyes, M.R., Rivers, S.E., Elbertson, N.A., & Salovey, P. (2011). Classroom

emotional climate, teacher affiliation, and student conduct. Journal of Classroom

Interaction, 46, 27-36.

Bradburn, N.M. (1969). The structure of psychological well-being. Chicago: Aldine.

Boyatzis, R. E., Goleman, D., & Rhee, K. (2000). Clustering competence in emotional intelligence:

Insight from the emotional competence inventory. In: R. Bar-On & J. D. A. Parker (eds.), the

handbook of emotional intelligence: Theory, development assessment and application at

home, school and in workplace, pp. 343- 362.San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Boyatzis,R.E., Goleman,D., & Hay-Mcber (1999).Emotional Competience Inventory. Hay Group.

Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). (2007). Benefits of SEL:

Meta-analysis.

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). (2005). Safe and Sound:

An Educational Leader’s Guide to Evidence-Based Social and Emotional Learning

Programs. Illinois edition. Chicago:

124

Catalano, R., Berglund, M., Ryan, J., Lonczak, H., & Hawkins, J. (2002). Positive youth

development in the United States: Research findings on evaluations of positive youth

development programs. Prevention & Treatment, 5(15), 1522-3736.

Charbonneau, D. & Nicol A. A. M. (2002). Emotional intelligence and leadership in adolescents.

Personality and Individual Differences, 33, pp.1101-1113.

Chandrani, S., Kulshrestha, U., (2006). Subjective Well Being in Relation to Emotional

Intelligence and Locus of Control among Executives. Journal of the Indian Academy of

Applied Psychology, Vol. 32, No.2, 93-98.

Chadha, N.K. (2001) Emotional Quotient intelligence Test. In Singh, D. Emotional intelligence at

work : A Professional Guide. New Delhi Sage

Chen, X., Rubin, K.H., Li, D. (1997). Relation Between Academic Achievement and Social

Adjustment: Evidence From Chinese Children. In: Developmental Psychology, 1997,

Volume 33, Number 3.

Ciarrochi, J. V., Chan, A. Y. C., & Bajgar, J. (2001). Measuring emotional intelligence in

adolescents. Personality and Individual Differences, 31, 1105–1119.

Ciarrochi, J.V., Chan, A.Y.C., &Bajgar, J. (2001). Measuring emotional intelligence in adoles-

cents. Personality and Individual Differences, 31, pp. 1105-1119.

Ciarrochi, J.V., Chan, A.Y.C., &Caputi, P. (2000). A critical evaluation of the emotional

intelligence construct. Personality and Individual Differences, 28, 539-561.

125

Clouder, C. (2007). Aspects of Social and Emotional Learning in the United Kingdom in In B.

Dahlin, B. (Ed) Social and Emotional Education. An International Analysis. Fundacion

Marcetino Botin Report (2008).

Cluster Access and Social inclusion in Lifelong Learning, (2006). Positive discrimination

measures, school integration of immigrant children, support to school drop-out. Summary

report of the Peer Learning in Brussels, 9-11 October 2006.

Cristini, F., Vieno, A., Scacchi, L., & Santinello, M. (2010). Migrant families and adolescence:

parenting style, internalization and externalization problems [Famiglie migranti e

adolescenza: stili genitoriali e problemi di internalizzazione ed esternalizzazione]. Journal

of Family Studies [Rivista di Studi Familiari], 2, 60-81.

D’Amico Antonella (2013) Test IE ACCME- Intelligenza emotiva: Abilita, Credenze e Concetto

di Sé Meta-Emotivo.Test pre Adolescenti Giunti O.S, Firenze.

D’Amico, A., & De Caro, T. (2008). Sviluppare l’Intelligenza Emotiva. Test e training per

percepire, usare, comprendere e gestire le emozioni. Erickson.

Dawda, D. & Hart, S.D. (2000). Assessing emotional intelligence: Reliability and validity of the

Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) in university students. Personality and

Individual Differences, 28, pp. 797-812.

De Caro, T., & D’amico, A. (2008). L’intelligenza emotiva: rassegna dei principali modelli

teorici, degli strumenti di valutazione e dei primi risultati di ricerca. Giornale Italiano di

Psicologia.

Department for Education and Skills (2003). Primary National Strategy. Excellence and

Enjoyment. Social, Emotional and Behavioural Skills. Nottingham: DfES.

126

Department for Education and Skills. (2005). Excellence and Enjoyment: Social and Emotional

Aspects of Learning: Guidance. Primary National Strategy, Inglaterra.

Diekstra, R., & Gravesteijn, C. (2008). Effectiveness of school-based social and emotional

education programmes worldwide. Social and emotional education education: An

international analysis (pp. 255-312).

Diekstra, R.F.W. (2007) Social and Emotional Education, or Skills for Life, in the Netherlands: a

Review of History, Policies and Practices. In B. Dahlin, B. (Ed) Social and Emotional

Education. An International Analysis. Fundacion Marcetino Botin Report (2008).

Di Fabio, A. (2012). Emotional Intelligence. New Perspectives and Applications. Rijeka: Intech.

Diener, E. (1994). Assessing Subjective Well-Being: Progress and Opportunities. Social

Indicators Research, 31, 103-157.

Diener, E, Suh, E., & Oishi, S. (1979). ”Recent Findings on Subjective Well-Being”. Indian

Journal of Clinical Psychology .

Diener, E. & Diener, M. (1995). Cross-cultural Correlates of Life Satisfaction and Self-esteem.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, (1), 120-129.

Diener, E., Emmons, R.A., Larsen, R.J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale.

Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71-75.

Durlak, J.A., Weissberg, R.P., Dymnicki, A.B., Taylor, R.D. and Schellinger, K.B. (2011). The

impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: a meta-analysis of school-

based universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1), 405-432.

Edwards, L. M., & Romero, A. J. (2008). Coping with discrimination among Mexican descent

adolescents. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Science, 30, 24-39.

127

Ellis, A. (1962). Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy. Revised and Updated. Syracuse, NJ:

Carol Publishing Group

Elliz, H. C. & Ashbook. (1988). Resources allocation model of the effects of depressed mood

states on memory. In: Forgas & Fiedler (eds.), Affect, cognition, and social behavior.

Toronto: Nogrefe.

Entwisle D.R. & Alexander K.L. 1993. Entry into school: The beginning school transition and

ducational stratification in the United States. Annual Review of Sociology, 19: pp401-423.

European Network for Social and Emotional Competence (2007). Promoting Emotional

Education.

Fuligni, A.J. (1998). The adjustment of children from immigrant families. In: Current Directions

in Psychological Science, Volume 7, Number 4.

Fernandez-Berrocal, P. Social and Emotional Education in Spain. In B. Dahlin (2007). Social and

Emotional Education. An International Analysis. Fundacion Marcetino Botin Report

(2008).

Fernández-Berrocal, P. (1995). Cognición social. En: L. Gómez y J. Canto (eds.). Psicología

social. Madrid: Ediciones Pirámide.

Fernández-Berrocal, P., y Extremera, N. (2005). La Inteligencia Emocional y la educación de las

emociones desde el Modelo de Mayer y Salovey. Revista Interuniversitaria de Formación

del Profesorado, 19, 63-93

Fernández-Berrocal, P. y Ramos, N. (2002). Corazones Inteligentes. Barcelona: Kairós

128

Fernández-Berrocal, P. y Ramos, N. (2004). Desarrolla tu Inteligencia Emocional. Barcelona:

Kairós

Fernández-Berrocal, P., Alcaide, R., & Ramos, N. (1999). The influence of emotional intelligen-

ce on the emotional adjustment in high school students. Bulletin of Kharkov State

University, 439(1-2), pp. 119-123.

Galton, F.(1885).On the anthropometric laboratory at the late international health exhibition.

Journal of Anthropological Institute, 14, 205-219.

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligence (10th anniversary ed.).

New York: Basic Books.

García Martín, (2004). Desde el concepto de felicidad al abordaje de las variables implicadas en

el bienestar subjetivo: un análisis conceptual.

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books. Traducción italiana: In-

telligenza Emotiva. Milano: Rizzoli, 1996.

Greenhalgh, P. (1994). Emotional Growth and Learning. London: Routledge.

Grazzani Gavazzi, I., Antoniotti, C., Ciucci, E., Menesini, E., Primi, C. (2009). La misura

dell’Intelligenza Emotiva: un contributo alla validazione italiana dell’Emotional

Intelligence Scale (EIS) con adolescenti. Giornale Italiano di Psicologia, 3, 635-656.

Grob A. (1995). Berne Questionnaire of Subjective Well-Being (youth form). Bern: University

of Bern.

129

Guerra, N. G., & Bradshaw, C. P. (2008). Linking the prevention of problem behaviors and

positive youth development: Core competencies for positive youth development and risk

prevention. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 122, 1–17.

Guilford, J. P. & Hoepfner, R. (1971). The analysis of intelligence. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Keyes, C. (1998). Social Well-Being. Social Psychology Quarterly, 61, 121-140.

Keyes, C.L.M., Shomotkin, D., & Ryff, C.D (2002). Optimizing well-being: the empirical

encounter of two traditions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychological, 82,1007-

1022.

Hannah, J. (2008). The role of education and training in the empowerment and inclusion of

migrants and refuges. In: Zajda, J.I., Davies, L., Majhanovich, S., Comparative and

global pedagogies: equity, access and democracy in education.

Hamm, J. V. (2000). Do birds of a feather flock togeher? The variable bases for African,

American, Asian American, and European American adolescents’ selection of similar

friends. Developmental Psychology, 36, 209-219

House, J. S., Landis, K. R., y Umberson, D. (1988). Social relationships and health. Science, 241,

540-545.

Lasso, C., Soto, N. (2005). The Social Integration of Latino Newcomer Students in Midwestern

Elementary Schools: Teacher and Administrator Perceptions. Number 142 14, Volume 1.

Levitt, M.J., Levitt, J., Bustos, G.L., Crooks, N.A., Hodgetts, J., Milevsky, A. (2004). Immigrant

children and adolescents: School adjustment in the first post-migration year. Presented at

the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego.

130

Liebkind, K., Jasinskaja-Lahti, I., Solheim, E. (2004). Cultural Identity, Perceived

Discrimination, and Parental Support as Determinants of Immigrants‟ School

Adjustments: Vietnamese Youth in Finland. In: Journal of Adolescent Research, Volume

19, Number 6.

Lopes, P.N., Brackett, M.A., Nezlek, J. B., Schutz, A., Sellin, I. y Salovey, P.(2004) Emotional

intelligence and social interaction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1018-

1034.

Madison, J. (1978). School Integration in Children's Literature. In: Equity & Excellence in

Education, Volume 16, Number 3.

Mancini,G.&Trombini, E. (2011). Dalle emozioni all’intelligenza emotive “comprendere per

educare”. Torino: Esspres edizioni.

Marijanović, J., Dimitrijević, A. A. (2011). The incremental validity of ability and trait EI

measures in predicting Psychological Well-Being. lll International Congress of Emotional

Intelligence. Opatija.

Martínez-Ponz, M. (1997). The relation of emotional intelligence with selected areas of persons

functioning. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 17, pp. 3-13.

Mavroveli, S., Petrides, K. V., Shove, C., & Whitehead, A. (2008). Investigation of the construct of

trait emotional intelligence in children. European Child an Adolescent Psychiatry, 17, pp.

516-526.

Maslow, A. H. (1968). Toward a psychology of being. New York: D. Van Norstrand.

131

Massot Lafon, Mª I. (2003). Jóvenes entre culturas. La construcción de la identidad en contextos

multiculturales. Bilbao: Desclée.

Matthews, G., Zeidner, M., & Roberts, R.D. (2002). Emotional intelligence: Science and myth.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Meadow H. L., J. T. Mentzer, D. R. Rahtz and M. J. Sirgy (1992). A life satisfaction measure

based on judgment theory, Social indicators research. 26, 23-59.

Messing, V. (2008). Good practices addressing school integration of Roma/Gypsy children in

Hungary. In: Intercultural Education, Volume 19, Number 5.

Muñoz, M. & Bisquerra, R. (2006). Evaluación de un programa de educación emocional para la

prevención del estrés psicosocial en el contexto del aula. Ansiedad y Estrés, 12 (2-3), 401-

412

Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) (1992). Trastornos mentales y del comportamiento.

Descripciones clínicas y pautas para el diagnóstico. Madrid, España: Visor.

Oswald, A.J. (1997) Subjective Well-Being and Economic Performance, The Economic Journal

197, 1815-31

Payton, J., Weissberg, R. P., Durlak, J. A., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., Schellinger, K. B.,

and Pachan, M. (2008). The Positive Impact of Social and Emotional Learning for

Kindergarten to Eighth Grade Students: Findings from three scientific reviews. Chicago:

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning.

132

Phinney, J.S., Horenczyk, G., Liebkind, K., Vedder, P. (2001). Ethnic Identity, Immigration, and

Well-Being: An Interactional Perspective. In: Journal of Social Issues, Volume 57,

Number 3.

Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Ravson, M. and Richter, T. (2000). The Educational Tasks and Content of the Steiner Waldorf

Curriculum. Forest Row, Sussex: Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship.

Ringel, S., Ronell, N., Getahune, S. (2005). Factors in the integration process of adolescent

immigrants: The case of Ethiopian Jews in Israel. In: International Social Work, Volume

48, Number 1.

Rivers, S. E., & Brackett, M. A. (2011). Achieving standards in the English language arts (and

more) using The RULER Approach to social and emotional learning. Reading & Writing

Quarterly, 27, 75-100.

Reyes, M. R., Brackett, M. A., Rivers, S. E., White, M., & Salovey, P. (2012). Classroom

emotional climate, student engagement, and academic achievement. Journal of

Educational Psychology, 104, 700-712.

Romero, A. J., Carvajal, S. C., Volle, F., & Orduña, M. (2007). Adolescent bicultural stress and

its impact on mental well-being among Latinos, Asian Americans, and European

Americans. Journal of Community Psychology, 35, 519-534.

Rotter J.B. (1966) Generalized expectancies for internal V/S external locus of reinforcement.

Psychological Monographs, vol. 20 whole No. 609.

133

Ryff, C. (1989). Happiness Is Everything, or Is It? Explorations on the Meaning of Psychological

Well-Being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57 (6), 1069-1081.

Ryff, C., Keyes, C. (1995). The structure of psychological well-being revisited. Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology, 69 (4), 719-727.

Ryff, C., Lee, Y. H., Essex, M. J., y Schmutte, P. S. (1994). My children and me: Midlife

evaluations of grown children and of self. Psychology and Aging, 9 (2), 195-205

Ryff, C., Essex, M. (1992). The interpretation of life experience and well-being: the sample case

of relocation. Psychology and Aging, 4, 507-517.

Ryff, C., y Singer, B. (1998). The contours of positive health. Psychological Inquiry, 9(11), 1-28.

Ryff, C., y Singer, B. (2002). From social structure to biology. En C. Snyder y A. López (Eds.),

Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 63-73). Londres: Oxford University Press.

Oaksford, M., Morris, F., Grainger, B., Williams, J., & Mark, G. (1996). Mood, reasoning, and

central executive processes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and

Cognition, 22(2), pp. 476-492.

Sala, F. (2002). Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI): Technical manual. Boston: Hay/Mcber

Group.

Salguero, J. M., Fernández-Berrocal, P., Aranda, D., Castillo, R. & Palomera, R. (2011). Inte-

ligencia emocional y ajuste psicosocial en la adolescencia: el papel de la percepción emo-

cional. European Journal of Education and Psychology, 4, pp. 143-152.

Soriano, E. & Osorio, M. (2008). The emotional competences of autochthonous and immigrant

students at the secondary education level. Bordon, 60(1), pp. 129-148.

134

Schutte, N., Malouff, J., Hall, L., Haggerty, D., Cooper, J., Golden, C., & Dornheim, L. (1998).

Development and validation of a measure of emotional intelligence. Personality and

Individual Differences, 25,167-177.

Silbereisen, R.K., Schmitt-Rodermund, E. (2000). Adolescent Immigrants' Well-Being: The Case

of Ethnic German Immigrants in Germany. In: International Journal of Group Tensions,

Volume 29, Numbers 1-2.

Singh O. (2001). Emotional Intelligence at work: A professional guide; New Delhi, Sage.

Smith, P. B. y Bond, M. H. (1993). Social Psychology across cultures. Londres: Harvester

Wheatsheaf.

Stodolska, M. (2008). Adaptation processes among young immigrants: An integrative review. In:

Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies, Volume 6, Number 1.

Stemberg, R. J. (1985). Beyond I. Q.: A Triarchic Teory of Human Intelligence. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press. Traducción italiana: Teorie dell’intellegenza. Milano: Bom-

piani, 1987.

Tapia, M. (2001). Measuring emotional intelligence. Psychological Reports, 88, pp. 353-364.

Thrustone, L. L. (1938). Primary mental abilities. Psychometric Monograph, 1.Chicago: Univer-

sity of Chicago Press.

Trinidad, D.R. & Johnson, C.A. (2002). The association between emotional intelligence and early

adolescent tobacco and alcohol use. Personality and Individual Differences, 32, 95-105.

135

Trujillo, M., Arturo, R. & Tovar, L. Orígenes, evolución y modelos de inteligencia emocional.

Innovar,15(25), pp. 9-24.

Virta, E., Sam, D.L., Westin C. (2004). Adolescents with Turkish background in Norway and

Sweden: A comparative study of their psychological adaptation. In: Scandinavian Journal

of Psychology, Volume 45, Number 1.

Vieno, A., Santinello, M., Lenzi, M., Baldassari, D., & Mirandola M. (2009). Health status in

immigrants and native early adolescents in Italy. Journal of Community Health, 34, 181-

187.

Walsh, S., Shulman, S., Bar-On, Z., & Tsur, A. (2006). The role of parentification and family

climate in adaptation among immigrant adolescents in Israel. Journal of Research on

Adolescence, 16, 321-349.

Weissberg, R. P., Kumpfer, K., & Seligman, M. E. P. (Eds.). (2003). Prevention that works for

children and youth: An introduction. American Psychologist, 58, 425– 432.

Yate, Martin (1997). Career smarts. Jobs with a future. Ballantive.

Zeidner, M., Olnick-Shernesh, D. (2010). Emotional intelligence and subjective well-being

revisited. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(4), 431-435.

Zhou, M. (1997). Growing Up American: The Challenge Confronting Immigrant Children and

Children of Immigrants. In: Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 23.

136

ANNEX

137

Benessere psicologico PsychologicalWell-Being Scale (PWBS; Ryff, 1989; in Zani, B ., & Cigonani, E., 1999) Le seguenti affermazioni descrivono differenti modi in cui le persone possono descrivere la propria vita o alcuni aspetti di essa. Dopo ogni affermazione vi sono cinque possibili risposte. Legga attentamente ogni affermazione e segni con una X la risposta che secondo Lei meglio La descrive 1 Mai vero per me 2 Raramente vero per me 3 Qualche volta vero per me 4 Solitamente vero per me 5 Sempre vero per me ssesso ______Numero______Genere ______Età______Per favore metta una X su un numero Data di Nascita ______1 Giudico me stesso secondo ciò che penso sia importante e 1 2 3 4 5 non per ciò che gli altri pensano sia importante 2 In generale, ho la sensazione di padroneggiare la situazione 1 2 3 4 5 in cui mi trovo 3 Ho rinunciato a grossi miglioramenti o cambiamenti nella 1 2 3 4 5 mia vita già da molto tempo 4 Non ho avuto esperienza di molte relazioni calorose e di 1 2 3 4 5 fiducia con gli altri 5 A volte ho la sensazione di aver fatto tutto quello che si 1 2 3 4 5 poteva fare nella vita 6 Molte volte non mi sento soddisfatto dei risultati ottenuti 1 2 3 4 5 nella mia vita 7 Ho fiducia nelle mie opinioni anche se sono contrarie a 1 2 3 4 5 quelle degli altri 8 Le richieste della vita di tutti I giorni spesso mi abbattono 1 2 3 4 5 9 Per me la vita è stata un continuo processo di apprendimento, 1 2 3 4 5 cambiamento e crescita 10 La gente mi descriverebbe come una persona disponibile, 1 2 3 4 5 pronta a condividere il mio tempo con gli altri 11 Alcune persone sono senza progetti, ma io non sono una di 1 2 3 4 5 quelle 12 Sono soddisfatto della maggior parte degli aspetti della mia 1 2 3 4 5 personalità 13 Tendo ad essere influenzato dalle persone che hanno forte 1 2 3 4 5 personalità 14 In generale, ho la sensazione di padroneggiare la situazione 1 2 3 4 5 in cui vivo 15 Penso sia importante avere nuove esperienze che ti aiutino a 1 2 3 4 5 confrontare l’opinione che hai di te e del mondo circostante 16 Mantenere relazioni stabili è stato per me difficile e 1 2 3 4 5 frustrante 17 Vivo la vita giorno per giorno e non penso al futuro 1 2 3 4 5 18 Sono soddisfatto di come sono andate le cose nella mia vita 1 2 3 4 5

PWS; Ryff, 1989; adattamento italiano a cura di Ruini, Ottolini, Rafanelli, Ryff e Fava, 2003